


Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered

by WylderWolf



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Marijuana, morphine use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WylderWolf/pseuds/WylderWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You hear that voice again, all angry and crackling with the kind of words your dad used to slap you upside the skull for. But you can sense the undertones, see the color of them splayed out over the wall like splatter paint, the sharp blue-green of his worry and the flashes of lighting-white fury, but it doesn’t strike you.</p><p>You can see your friend’s charred and lighting-white back  with your closed eyes, imprinted on the backs of your eyelids.</p><p>“Don’t you fall asleep on me, douchebag. Get up.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and on your machine, i slur a plea for you to come home

You jump slightly when you feel the buzz of your phone’s vibration in your back pocket. The room is quiet, save for your professor’s constant monotone drawl at the front of the lecture hall, faltering briefly when he hears your chair scrape the tile floor in your convulsion. Your cheeks grow hot as necks crane, faces giving you confused looks and it’s all you can do to smile awkwardly and wave at your professor in a silent apology. His droning voice continues on.

What the fuck?

Anyone that you message regularly knows that you’re in class. Irritation begins to prickle at you, constricted heat washing over your body, pulling your mouth down into an aggravated scowl. You try and focus on your notes, pen tapping quietly against your notebook, but your mind keeps straying to the phone searing a hole in your pocket.

You hold back a snarl as you fish it out, eyes trained ahead of you, just in case your professor looks up. You’ve seen this video of some poor fuck getting his phone smashed to bits for texting in class, and you can’t afford anything more than the piece of shit you currently hold in your hands.

You click the screen to life under the table and wince at how bright it is. Cautiously, you glance down, letting your eyes take a moment to adjust.

It’s a number you don’t have programmed into your phone. You take a second to puzzle over this; you don’t remember handing your number out to anyone recently. You open the message. Your eyes widen in shock and your body goes completely rigid.

" **HOnK ;o)"**  


Your head swims in a raging storm of pandemonium and your breath sits uncomfortably somewhere between your lungs and your throat. A quick search through your memory confirms that, yes, you’d blocked his number around a year and a half ago. He shouldn’t be able to contact you, not now, not ever again. A panic that usually comes out as rage bubbles up inside of you with no place to escape. Your pen snaps in your other hand.

Slowly, you remember how to breathe.

You could be smart. You could ignore it, ignore him, pretend that you’ve never spoken to him, as you’ve been doing for the past four and a half years or so. You haven’t wanted anything to do with him since a decent college accepted you and you came to your goddamn senses about life in general.

Your finger hovers over the “reply” button.

This is a stupid idea. Humoring him won’t get you anywhere, will only yank his sorry ass back into your life, and you don’t want to think about what the shivers that idea brings mean. You hate him. You’ve always hated him, despite his insistence on a bond between the two of you. A miracle connection, he’d said more than once.

The real miracle is that you haven’t gotten a restraining order against him yet. Your phone buzzes in your palm.

**"WhAt’S a MoThErFuCkEr GoT tO dO tO tAlK tO hIs BeStFrIeNd?"**

Your lips curls, and you hit “reply.” You type a single word trying to keep quiet and not alert your professor with the furious clicking of keys.

**"NO."**

The shaking in your limbs calms fractionally. You want to say more, let out a full-blown rant on him, full of creative names and insults. You know better. He would only laugh.

You reach onto your bad for another pen. The professor is still speaking in the same painful tone. You find it hard to focus, no matter how many times you shove the text message from your mind.

Just as you start to relax, poising your pen to notes, your phone buzzes again. You growl somewhere deep in your chest. The girl next to you casts you a slightly worried glance.

You open the message.

" **CoMe On NoW bRoThEr. YoU aIn’T sTiLl mOtHeRfUcKiNg SoUr At Me ArE yOu?"**  


Your face contorts into a mask of disgust.

**"YES I AM STILL FUCKING SOUR. I AM TWO MONTH OLD MILK SOUR. LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, SHITSTAIN."**

You drop your phone into your bag and resolve to ignore him. He would never respond correctly to anger, anyway. And why the hell would you give a shit? He can be alone in his fucked-up head for all you care.

A sigh escapes you and your gaze flits to the clock above the door. Ten more minutes. You’re supposed to meet Terezi for lunch once your get out. The corner of your mouth almost quirks upward before you can catch yourself.

You’d found happiness since the days you’d spent hanging around his sorry cumsplatter of an existence. You don’t need to think about him now, not when things have started to look almost good for you. You’re almost able to ignore it when your phone buzzes again.

Almost.

**== >**

Fireworks.

Your head lolls back, a heavy, sleepy feeling settling over your entire body. Your skin prickles. Your head gets steadily hazier. You take a slow, heady breath, staring up at the patterns dancing on the ceiling and it is the most motherfucking beautiful thing you have ever seen in your life, even more beautiful than the last trip, or the one before that, and then your memory falters. A smile twitches at your lips, though you can’t quite feel the movement. Your body sinks slowly into the ground, and you are completely enveloped, mind slowing down into a sleepy drift.

You know the meaning of life and this is it, this miracle that shoots its way through your system and makes you warm, so warm, and keeps you grounded as everything spins.

Words almost start to slur from your mouth but you can't quite make them happen. Your lips shape empty syllables and musical sounds and you are drunk on the melody of your own voice, hums sending vibrations into the air, tickling and dancing.

Your nerves are dancing. You laugh, a low sound in your chest, and that is even better.

Thick smoke still floats daintily through the air even though you out out your last blunt- how long ago was it now?

Fuck it.

You decide to forget what time even is and concentrate on the miracle of what the skunky-sweet smell mixed with the fire in your veins does to the whole world, to your blissed-out body.

Your arms are limp but you manage to dig in your pocket and fish out a cigaret. Pulling the smoke into your lungs just makes the world even sweeter.

"Mothafuckin perfect," you manage to mumble to your empty kitchen. You revel in the shape of the words.

Everything is a beautiful miracle and for a little while you aren't so motherfucking scared of the world.

You don't know how long the world stays in utter euphoria but a thousand years later you feel dread begin to creep into your chest again and you try so, so hard to cling to your sleepy-happy haze but you're suddenly aware they you are very, very alone.

Your head throbs and you whine in the back of your throat. You roll onto your side, hands creeping across the linoleum and reaching for you're-not-sure-what and coming up agonizingly empty. Your eyes squeeze shut and your sounds are no longer beautiful because you're whimpering.

The sun rose since you've been away and it filters through the window and hurts your skin. Your mouth is dry but you still manage to speak.

"Karbro?"

Everything is silent and too loud and when you open your eyes you're transported back to the world that your best friend abandoned you in and boy does it motherfucking hurt.

You curl in on yourself, your stomach starting to protest weakly. You need water, but that would mean getting to your feet and there is so much pain in that action and all you want to do is lie still, maybe sleep here for a while.

Before you can do that that, though, you have to tell you best friend that you motherfucking love the hell out of him, and you pick up your shiny new cell phone to that while the wetness on your face stains the makeup you so painstakingly applied.

**== >**

You walked Terezi home that afternoon and now you're cleaning up the mess of popcorn kurnels your impromptu-afternoon-moviefest resulted in. She gets bored listening them and eventually starts flicking popcorn at your face or tickling you or poking you when you get too engrossed to describe what's happening on the screen anymore.

The sound of the door opening and two sets of footsteps less you know that your brother brought home company. You glance up from gathering dishes to shoot Kankri and Porrim a glare, only to have the elder Vantas shoo you away into your room. His voice carries, some long-winded lecture that Porrim continually cuts off with challenging quips. You slam your door behind you, annoyance fueling each motion and the conversation stops for a moment before you hear Kankri continue.

You sit on your mattress, disturbed by the space you now have to think.

Your eyes travel to the bag unceremoniously dumped at the foot of your bed. Your ignored your phone since noon and had managed to forget the unwelcome messages in the midst of the pre-movie makeout session with your girlfriend.

A sigh twists into and agitated snarl as it passes your lips. You honestly don't want to deal with this shit now, but a sick kind of curiosity clenches around your mind and tight, demanding strokes over your common sense. You growl deep in your chest as you roll over and reach for the bag, fishing out your phone and arching an eyebrow at the five different alerts.

You decide to stall. The most recent is from your brother.

**"I am 6ringing P9rrim with me when I c9me h9me. Make sure the apartment is presentable, at the very least."**

You roll your eyes, lip curling. Judging by the heated tone their debate is taking, a few dishes on the coffee table won't make a difference. You catch a few of Kankri's clipped word as Porrim lances at him with quick, crippling arguments in her favor. The nature of the discussion is lost on you, though assuming from the tone of Porrim's voice it's some form of social justice angst being driven forcefully into your brother's skull. You flash a bitter grin and remember why you don't mind having the woman around.

Next text.

You sneer and skim idly over an invitation from Sollux (a reconciliation for your last spat that you aren’t quite ready to accept yet) and answer it with a blunt **“FUCK OFF DUDE I’M FUCKING BUSY.”** You trap your lower lip with your teeth, deciding to reopen the topic with him the day after tomorrow. You both know the bitter feelings can only be dragged out for a couple of days before one of you breaks.

Your stomach constricts at the last three, all from that new number. You stare blankly for a minute. Opening the texts and responding is like rolling out a goddamnmed welcome mat for him, inviting him right back on in and that is the very last thing you want to do. But you can’t help but feel your message needs to be put out there. You flip open the key pad on your phone as you read.

**“DoN’t Be LiKe ThAt, BrOtHeR. yOu KnOw YoU mOtHeRfUcKiNg MiSs Me.”**

**“ItS a MoThErFuCkInG mIrAcLe I gOt ThIs PhOnE. wAnTeD tO tElL mY mOtHeRfUcKiNg BeStFrIeNd HoW mUcH i MoThErFuCkInG lOvE hIm.”**

**“KaRkAt PlEaSe. iT wOrE oFf AnD iTs bAd AgAiN. mIsS yOu, bRoThEr.”**

You read and reread the texts for a while, studying each one carefully.The subtle change in wording is telltale and concern stabs against your stomach in spite of the fury that bubbles inside you.

Why the fuck do you care.

Your fingers tighten around your phone as your internal battle rages on relentlessly. What he does is no fault of yours and you have very few shits to give about his idiocy.

At the same time, however, softer memories begin to return and you find yourself cursing aloud, thumbs quickly typing out a message.

**“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT GAMZEE WHAT THE EVERLOVING SHIT DID YOU JUST TAKE? AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU STILL HAVE MY NUMBER?”**

You glare at the screen for a few minutes before the reply comes.

**“No NeEd To WoRrY mY mOsT gRaCiOuS fRiEnD. aLl Is MoThErFuCkInG bEaUtIfUl AgAin.”**

Your breath hitches. You remember him being stupid but not stupid enough to fall under the suspicions that you now have. His comedowns don’t wear off that quickly. His cry for help had come only a few hours before and this kind of depression used to carry him well into the night. Worry rumbles loudly inside of you, but so does anger and the two form a wordless kind of fury and it takes a moment for you to answer him.

**“YOU FUCKING IDIOT. I SWEAR TO ANYTHING FUCKING HOLY, IF YOU’VE BECOME SO PISS-POOR AS TO START MIXING SHIT I WILL PERSONALLY SHOVE YOUR MORONIC ASS INTO REHAB.”**

You settle back again, your body a mess of fidgeting limbs. Your phone feels heavy in your palms, your stomach knotting. Worry is a familiar feeling to you, something you’d never admit out loud but came to terms with long ago. Your fingers curl tightly against your thighs.

You thought you’d buried the soft-spot Gamzee had dug out of you, but you feel it throbbing now, and you snarl.

A violent jolt passes through your body when you hear a light tap on the door. Your eyes dart over, your upper lip curled over your teeth in an angry growl, and you mutter and irritated _“What?”_

Kankri takes this as an invitation.

“Karkat,” he hums as he opens the door, poking his head in and making you go rigid. “The dishes are overflowing the sink and I wanted to know if you could-” he cuts off. “Something is wrong.”

“Fuck off.” You hardly even glance at him, skin prickling.

He ignores you. “What’s going on?” He comes into your room, toward you, despite the warning glare you flash him. “May I offer any consolation?”

You stand up when he tries to sit beside you. “You can get out of my room, jackass.”

His forehead creases, teeth capturing his lip. “I suppose it would be pointless to ask you to mind your language, hmm?” He sighs. “I really would like to help,” he says, turning dark eyes on you.

“I-” you run a palm down your face. “It’s nothing, Kankri, just another fucking idiot being a fucking moronic piece of shit and I’m trying to-”

“Which one?” he mutters dryly.

“Fuck you.” You pause, worry prickling at you again. “...Gamzee.”

The elder Vantas stiffens visibly, staring at you with alarm-filled eyes.

“Gamzee? Gamzee _Makara_?”

When you nod slowly, you can see the anger flicker over his features in a sharp, short wave. “Karkat,” he begins apprehensively, before you cut him off.

“I know, I know, I fucking know,” you hiss through your teeth. “He’s a fuckup and I shouldn’t be associating myself with another onslaught of bullshit.”

Kankri balks. “Not my wording, but essentially, yes.” He sighs heavily. “I remember him from before. I must say I was pleased when you decided to end your relationship with him.”

You snort. “You make it sound like we held hands and blew each other in the school bathrooms.”

“Karkat-!”

“We hung out sometimes. Before he went batshit and got into the heavy stuff, okay?” You squeeze the phone in your palm and give a shuddering sigh.

Your brother blinks reproachfully at you. “I’m sure whatever you’re trying to fix can be dealt with by someone else.” He pulls a face and mutters under his breath. “Perhaps a rehabilitation center.”

Your lips curls. “Fuck you.” You look down when your phone goes off, trying very hard not to rush yourself as you open the text. “Shit-”

**“NoT tO bE bOtHeReD mY bRoThEr. OnLy ThE mIrAcLe PiLlS tHe MoThErFuCkInG bEsT dOc CoOkS uP.”**

“Shit,” you say again, standing up and groping blindly for your bag. “Shit, shit, I have to go.”

Kankri stares questioningly at you as you sling the bag over your shoulder. “Karkat? What happened?”

Your teeth grind together and your body hums with anxious tension. “He took his fucking crazy meds with god knows what else.” You make a loud, frustrated noise in the back of your throat and pull up Sollux’s number in your phone, petty argument forgotten.

**“DUDE I NEED GAMZEE’S ADDRESS LIKE NOW. DOES HE STILL LIVE WHERE HE USED TO?”**

You can hear Kankri’s voice but the words are meaningless drabble as you fumble around and wait, worry a cold, desperate claw around your stomach. “-and it’s not really fair that it’s always you running to the rescue, I mean you’re hardly a knight in shining armor and I’m sure I could ask Cronus to call Kurloz- no, no, he’d never answer Cronus. I’m sure I could call Cronus and ask him to ask Meulin to call Kurloz and get this entire matter settled. Gamzee will be just fine, you _really_ shouldn’t put this much on yourself, Karka-”

“Jesus fucking christ, Kankri, will you shut the fuck up for two seconds?” you snarl.

Your phone buzzes in a painfully delayed response and your heart skips nervously.

**“yeah, ii think 2o. ii haven’t been over there iin year2 though.”**

It’ll have to do.

You take Kankri’s car keys, ignoring his loud, indignant protests and rushing through the small apartment with him following you closely, voice gaining pitch with each word.

“Karkat, please, is this really necessary, Karkat, just sit down a moment, I’m sure everything will be fine-”

You fail to hear it. Refuse to listen. You slam to front door behind you and take the stairs instead of the elevator.

An internal clock ticks ominously inside of you and your breathing is far too heavy when you turn the key in the ignition of Kankri’s old Ford Escort. You aren’t a praying kind of person, but your father is definitely a preacher and you definitely picked up a few things and you are definitely praying as hard as you can as you break traffic laws on the way across town.

**== > **


	2. cut out all the ropes and let me fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karkat gets a well-deserved rant in.

**== >**

The lights do a sporadic dance on the ceiling and you can hear the breath rattling in your lungs.

The bad parts went away with the small white pills that flooded like ice into your body, sending a serene cloud into your mind and there is only bliss, now, even if your stomach hurts and your head is pounding and your best friend hates your motherfucking guts, solidified in his new harsh words. You grin at nothing, The world is beautiful.

Your stomach contracts uncomfortably.

Some distant part of you knows that its time to panic, but moving is a thing you definitely do not want to do, especially since the floor tiles are cool against your skin and your limbs feel too heavy.

The world fades in and out.

Your hands clench and unclench and every movement is a tiny miracle to your limp body. Tightness lances over your belly in spasms, your tongue pressing against the cage of your teeth with every breath that hisses into your lungs. Everything spins and tastes bad and you roll onto your side, coughing, your face wet with a bad smell. Your mouth is bitter and burning. Time passes in utter silence and you hum in your sleep.

When light hits your unfocused eyes you whine, moving your arm to cover your face. It slaps wetly against your forehead and that smell, that taste is still there, turning stale. There’s a voice, a motherfucking beautiful voice that almost stirs you but your body is still too heavy. Your lips fall into a lazy smile.

The voice forms words.

“Don’t give me that smug-ass smile you rotting piece of moldy fucking shit.”

Your body relaxes.

“Heeeey, bestfriend.”

“I’m not your best friend.”

You feel hands hook under your arms, lifting you up and dragging you in stumbling steps. You feel the texture of the floor beneath your immobile legs change from tile to wood, and then tile again and the bright light of your bathroom stings at your eyes.

You hear that voice again, all angry and crackling with the kind of words your dad used to slap you upside the skull for. But you can sense the undertones, see the color of them splayed out over the wall like splatter paint, the sharp blue-green of his worry and the flashes of lighting-white fury, but it doesn’t strike you.

You can see your friend’s charred and lighting-white back with your closed eyes, imprinted on the backs of your eyelids.

“Don’t you fall asleep on me, douchebag. Get up.”

 

Your shirt bunches where he grips it, hoisting you upward. You totter weakly on your feet before stumbling to your knees.

The cold surface of the bathtub cradles you and you sink gratefully into it. Your eyes flutter shut and for a long while, a few hours, a few seconds, you are entirely unaware. You drift on darkness and that voice lulling you into harsh, angry oblivion.

Frigid water hits your face in a sharp burst and the world fizzles into sudden, shocking focus and right back out again.

“Motherfu-” you gurgle when the spray clogs your mouth. 

You can make out the contours of his face when you blink the water from your eyes. He looks older, now, less round and more cheekbones and just as wonderful and beautiful and miraculous as you always told him he was. His lips are pulled down in a scowl, his brows knitted.

“How’s that for a miracle?” 

He’s slightly more tan than you remember and his hair curls a little longer around his ears. Violet swirls in tandem with the way his lips move.

You sputter incoherently and water droplets land on his shirt. He arches a brow. 

Water sprays your face again and your body goes limp in surrender, in exhaustion and you can feel his hands, now. Brushing the hair away from your face and thumbing over your cheeks with a painful kind gentleness. You feel the smell and the taste leaving your body. You turn your face into his palm and kiss it while he hisses protest. 

“Missed you, brother.”

“Fuck off.”

He continues this, this wonderfully intimate kind of touching. His fingers grace through your hair in quick movements, removing the grime of hours of that stagnant smell. You lean into him, a slow, lazy hum building inside of you and being released in a breath against his palm.

“Gah,” he growls, jerking his arm back. You grin.

And then he’s lifting you again, pulling your sodden body out of the tub and helping you to your feet with a little too much force. But he’s stable to lean on and you even manage a few steps and thats good enough. Your toes eventually hit plush carpet and you barely have the brain capacity to recognize the bedroom you never use.

You think yourself charming when his fingers hook under your shirt, sending radiating blue-white sparks over your navel that you miracles and syringes could never hope to hold a candle to. You try to capture his chin in your fingertips, but the gesture ends in a sloppy caress down the side of his face.

He snarls. “Get your dickrubbing, ass-fondling hands away from me.”

Frowning, you release him, allowing him to remove your wet shirt and pyjama pants, forcing you back onto your mattress and you fall in a mess of gentle gold and the deep brown of his narrowed eyes.

He mutters something but you are too motherfucking comfortable here to notice. You think about asking him to lay here with you, but the lights flicker off and you are left in beautiful, velvety darkness and its far too easy to succumb.

**== >**

 

A clear head is like seeing through canine eyes, muddled and dull and incomplete. The spectrum is entirely wrong. Grays and blues weigh you down into a twilight-like gloom, and the blankets around you are too hot. Your mouth is dry. Your head throbs.

The bed tries to suck you back in when you attempt movement. The world spins around you and rattles your stomach, making you roll to the edge of your mattress and heave dryly. You remember that smell, the one that now creeps into your sinuses from behind. How it clung to you and how you laughed. 

Your skull feels as if its being hammered. You moan softly into the sheets.

It could be minutes or hours later but you’ve been laying here in your (slightly damp?) bed for far too long and the world’s colors need to be set straight. Swinging your feet to the floor is done only with a painful creak of bone, and standing makes your empty stomach burble.The shaky steps you take nearly send you to the floor, and you cling to the mattress, the nightstand, the wall. Your vision swims and vertigo attacks you with a ruthless and hungry maw. You hiss through your teeth. Your feet hit the threshold of the bedroom door.

Something smells off. 

Something smells warm and thick in the air and the taste it brings makes you empty stomach twist in rejection. Your brow furrows. Your voice is gruff and cracked with sleep when you speak.

“What motherfucker is all up an’ tryin’a burn down my pace?”

There’s a clatter from down the hall. Your foggy mind runs a short list of people who would give enough of a shit o be here this early to hang out with you, and a grim part of you figures its a partner with a depleted stash. A chained-up sad part of you hopes Tav or Kurloz bothered to check in but you beat those thoughts back into submission before they can gain footing.

“I think I used up the rest’a my shit last night, there ain;t anythin’ left-” you lie as you stumble forward, rubbing at your eyes.

That smell is something familiar and homey. You hear one of your under-used pans clattering against the sove.

“Who the fuck-”

“Like I’d want any of your shitty stash.”

Oh. Yeah.

He’s leaning over your counter and furiously stirring at a bowl of eggs with a bent whisk. He prods ha sausages on the stove with a free hand, tossing the scent in your direction and making your throat constrict around the dry bile that your stomach tries to force up.

You blink rapidly, mind trying desperately to recall the events that would’ve led up to this. It makes sense that Karkat would be here, somehow.

“Why’s my bed wet?” you mutter.

He turns to you, glowering through dark brown eyes, a scowl set on his lips that almost makes you laugh that awful sober laugh of yours.

An agitated sigh escapes him. “Shower.”

“I showered?”

“I found you in a puddle of puke and _threw_ you in the shower.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

He turns away from you and scoops eggs onto a cracked plate with shaking hands. You chance a step forward across the linoleum. He doesn’t move. 

Slowly, you reach out to touch his shoulder.

You’ve seen him before. When you couldn’t sleep or eat or think and you needed to cry you saw him but he’s so much lighter and sometimes he doesn’t have legs and you could never, ever touch him.

You can feel the sharp line of bone and warmth from his skin under a black cotton shirt. A slow, soft smile begins to light your face before he jerks away from you with a growl.

“Get the fuck off of me.”

It takes a moment to move, taking your hand away and settling back on your heels. He doesn’ look at you as he arranges two plates, handing one to you without another word.

You stare at the food, trying to ignore the tightening in your stomach at the smell.

“...Can’t,” you mutter.

“Eat.”

He pulls a chair away from the small plastic table by the kitchen window, letting the legs scrape along the floor, and sits down gingerly, as if sitting on something disgusting. His fork makes a loud clack against the plate when he spears a sausage link. Nausea rises in you, tingling up to your jaw and you have to hold back another dry heave. You sit to avoid another strong rush of vertigo.

Karkat fixes you with a stare, non-hostile but still harsh, brows furrowed, fingers tight around his fork. You blink.

“Are you going to fucking eat or what?”

You grimace, prodding at the contents of your plate with a long, bony finger. “Not ‘nless you wanna hose me down again, brother.”

Silence.

Tentatively, you place a small bite of cheese-laden scrambled egg into your mouth. It tastes like familiar Sunday-morning breakfasts, like warmth, and you shovel a full bite into your mouth in total disregard to the protests of your shrunken stomach. Karkat doesn’t speak, only eyes you intently.

You wide the corner of your mouth with your bare wrist, jaw going slightly slack as you chew. You feel dizzy.

“Motherfuck,” you growl, setting your fork down and placing a palm against your face. “Ate too fast.”

He arches a brow, brow, calmly getting up, walking toward you.

Something isn’t right. He hasn’t yelled at you, hasn’t called you any names, hasn’t ranted at you or told you off. He’s quiet and reserved and somehow that hurts way, way worse than if he had hit you and told you how stupid you are.

“Karbro-?” Your stomach clenches and you gasp and clutch at it.

He offers a hand to you wordlessly, helping you out of your chair, pulling your arm over his shoulders and leading you down the hall to the bathroom, letting you fall to your knees and lunge for the toilet and bless the sweet, sweet porcelain gods, you make it and you can _smell_ it again, a throatfull of sausage and eggs and bitter digestive fluids. You know that the retching sounds you make are vial, wet sputters echoing in the round bowl.

“Fuck-” you cough, bruising your fingertips against the toilet seat. You try to spit out the taste in your mouth, wincing when it lingers like a fog on your tongue.

Karkat is still behind you leaning against the door. You glance at him with a half-guilty pull to your lips, your sober mind processing things you don’t want it to. Embarrassment floods hotly in your cheeks and shame makes you look away and wipe self-consciously at your mouth. The sound of the toilet flushing is way too loud in the quiet apartment.

You sit back gingerly against the tiled wall, feeling his eyes on you, wanting to curl in on your half-naked , too-thin frame and hide your needle-scarred arms. Your worn-out boxers slider up your thighs. You are disgusting to him, you can feel it resonating in the air and burning in his eyes. You’re little better than a pale, light-starved insect under a rotted log.

You want to vomit again.

The silence is gnawing and vibrating between the two of you, tainting the air with bright splashes of orange, twisting like electricity. Your breath is shaky in your lungs. He sighs, shifting slightly and folding his arms across his chest,

“...I need a cigarette,” you say softly, wobbling to your feet. 

He blinks, still quiet, and follows you when you pass him.

Your pack of cigarettes is laying on your grimy coffee table nest to a half-empty lighter. You realize Karkat must have cleaned up the kitchen and moved them for you. You feel a pang that you aren’t alltogether comfortable with.

Pulling smoke into your chest is only slightly calming when you hands are trembling too hard to hold anything right. Karkat settles himself on the couch, crossing his leg and resting his chin on his hand, eyes following the smoke that drifts up to the ceiling. 

You take a deep pull, not looking at him.

“...Why’d you all up an’ make me puke my guts, man?” you ask, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

Karkat stiffens slightly at your voice. “You were a fucking genius and mixed morphine with alcohol, dumbass. I’m helping you get rid of the fucking hangover.” he pauses, something mildly softer flashing in his eyes. “You almost died.”

You bark out a bitter laugh. “That really the best way, brother?”

“I’m not your brother,” he hisses, muscles visibly tensing. It’s quite the sight. You smile softly.

“And it’s not like I had a fucking stomach pump or whatever the fuck it is they use at the fucking hospital- “hey, some fuckstick I haven’t spoken to in years- _for a goddamn reason_ \- went and overdosed like the inbred shitstain he is. Just don’t lock him up or take the fucking needle out of his arm.”

He rounds on you now, standing up and moving toward you, bristling.

“What the fuck were you even doing, anyway? Why did you have to fucking message me in the middle of my goddamn psych class and crawl your sorry ass back in? I blocked your number for a _reason_ , I can’t _deal_ with this crock of shit.”

He’s jabbing a finger at your chest now, exploding right before your humble eyes. Red. Red, red, red floats in the air and bathes the two of you and spatters the walls like blood. 

“You’ve literally got a shitload of other people who would want to come out and rescue you, and you fucking ask _me_?” I had to fucking drive across town when Tav or Dave or _anyone_ but me lives closer and probably gives a lot more of a shit.”

You don’t mention that Tavros had nervously suggested that you needed some time apart and dave has been avoiding you for some time now, ever since you offered him a needle and he left you high and alone on your couch saying, “Shit’s too heavy, man.”

Karkat is shaking now. You wonder if he’s been holding this in all night. He emanates red.

“I could be watching the fucking Notebook or some shit with my girlfriend right about now, but no, fucking _no_ , I get to hose puke off of some fucking moron I had no intention of ever interacting with again in the first place. I-” he cuts off, letting out a wordless, frustrated growl. 

You keep him in a level- if sleepy- gaze and feel each word sinking into you like a dull knife. But you’ll deal with that later. You gently remove the finger digging into your ribs and bring Karkat toward you.

“What the fuck are you-”

Your arms snake around him and give a less-than-delicate squeeze, your cheek pressed against his messy hair and your face drawn in a sad smile. 

He’s here. You can feel him. He isn’t a fever-dream hallucination or an empty wish, You can hug him.

“M’glad you’re here, brother.”

**== >**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow shit I'm sorry this took so long to update. I promise I have this fic like half-done in my notebook. I just dont have access to a decent computer or internet back home and so I can only type it up every few weekends or so.


	3. and that was love, when we were sober

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Terezi Pyrope is poorly characterized, but also eternally patient and beautiful.
> 
> And Gamzee Makara is the _worst_ possible influence.

**1M BOR3D**

**K4RK4T?**

**K4444RKLL333SS**

**JESUS FUCKING HELL TEREZI CHILL OUT. I HAD SHIT TO DO. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?**

You hit send and lean you forehead against the steering wheel for a moment, letting out a long sigh. Kankri’s car is too hot from sitting in the sun since you ran out to get food for-

You shove the key in the ignition and start the car, pulling out of the parking garage and heading back toward campus.

The level of your own idiocy is heavy in the air. You shouldn’t have gone. His body had already calmed down from the drug and he would have been fine, you could have told somebody- _anybody_ \- to go and take care of him.

Its two in the afternoon and you feel disgusting. You slept uneasily on his grimy sofa and checked on him every time your pulse got too fast to lie down anymore. The image of his body sprawled over the bed is burned into the backs of your eyelids, making your breath hitch and your throat tight. No grown-ass man should look so young. No manipulative addict could look so innocent.

You scrub a hand across your face, turning into the parking lot of a run-down tower of cheap apartments after slamming your horn at a mud-splattered truck that cuts you off, screaming out obscenities at the the driver. You earn a middle finger in return and you growl to yourself as you pull into Kankri’s reserved parking space.

Your brother is at work. You glance over the concerned note on the coffee table, the complaint about not having the car ( **I had to ask Cr9nus t9 drive me, Karkat, I cann9t 6e this inc9nsiderate again.** ) Snorting, you crumple the paper up and toss it into the wastebasket, stumbling toward the bathroom. Your skin feels coated in filth. You need to wash him off of you.

The phone in your back pocket vibrates as you discard your shirt on the bathroom floor. You tense as you pull it out.

**1 W4NT TO DO SOM3TH1NG W1TH YOU YOU DOUCH3**

You exhale shakily. Antagonistic texts from Terezi are much better than soft word from-

You lean against the sink and type a response.

**FINE. I’LL COME GET YOU WHEN I GET OUT OF THE SHOWER.**

The warm spray hits your skin in a relaxing wave and you sigh, tilting your head back, your tense limbs unknotting themselves enough for you to slump against the wall and let your eyelids flutter closed for a moment.

You don’t think. Thinking is a bad idea at present and you _really_ , really don’t want to dwell on the memories that are trying to flood your mind. It isn’t worth it. _He_ isn’t worth it. Your fragile mental stability has been kept in check for the better part of three years and you have no plans on letting him fuck up the life you’ve built. No amount of griping about _loyalty_ and _friendship_ can-

Oh fuck no, you're not dealing with this. You are physically incapable of handling a dizzying wave of bittersweet nostalgia or remembering how _good_ it is to laugh over stupid stoner shit and how relaxing his voice is when he’s-

Fuck this shit.

You cut him out for a reason and that reason is the fact that he’s a helpless piece of trash and you have bigger plans for your life than constantly hauling his ass out of the infinite amount of fixes he lands it in. He’s not your _friend_ anymore and he’s not your responsibility. You don’t have to speak to him again after this incident. You can block his new number and forget everything, forget-

Forget about how good it felt to sink into his all-too-familiar frame and talk to him, talk to him while he gives you that steady, listening look that no one else has ever given enough of a fuck to give you. Forget about the fact that he cares about you and wants to be around you and that you feel- once felt- calm around him.

You slam the tap down with an angry jerk and yank the curtain back, wrapping a towel around your waist and stepping out of the bathroom.

“About time, I was getting bored just sitting arou-”

“ _Jesus fucking hell Terezi what the shit-_ ”

Laughter fills the apartment and you hardly get a chance to look around before she’s down the hall and wrapping slender arms around your torso, feeling her way with careful practice and giggling madly as she rests her chin against your shoulder.

You glare at her, all one hundred and twenty pounds of cocky law school student, red glasses slightly askew on the wide bridge of her nose.

“How the hell did you even get her?” you sputter, tightening the towel on your hips self-consciously.

She grins, tilting sightless eyes up at you and setting her palms flat against your bare chest.

“‘Tula drove me. She thought you were being pretty rude, so we decided to bust me in.”

“You’re horrible and I hate you.”

Terezi snickers, standing on her toes to kiss you and missing by a fraction of an inch, nailing the corner of your mouth. You roll your eyes, cupping her cheek and kissing her gently on the lips.

You settle in on the couch with her after getting dressed, her fingers knotting and curling through your damp hair and your head in her lap. You turn the television on.

“What was up this morning, anyway? You cant’ve actually slept until two.”

“It wasn’t anything important,” you grumble, flipping idly through channels and settling on Love Actually for the third time this week.

Terezi groans after hearing a few lines. 

“If you’re really gonna make me sit through this again, you can at least tell me what adventure you were on this morning.”

“Shh.” You keep your eyes glued to the screen, relaxing into her and butting your head against her hand when she stop the movement of her fingers in your hair. She plucks a stand out.

“Stop being a jerk,” she complains.

“Fucking hell, I went out last night, okay? Is that a fucking crime now? What, are you gonna turn into a creepy obsessive girlfriend, or-?”

She flick your forehead, narrowly missing your eye, and smirks.

“Hook up with any hot chicks?”

“Yeah, totally.”

“Dudes?”

“Like five. Took it right up the ass. I might even actually leave you this time.”

“Finally.”

And then she’s kissing you, soft at first and then more, her fingers tightening in you hair, her lips parting for you. Kissing Terezi is a spiritual experience. Her tongue and teeth could knock anyone to their knees in a fit of wondrous sobbing, and the tricks her fingers know are illegal in five states.

Not in this one, luckily for you.

She is a needed distraction and you hum gratefully when she tugs at your hair and places a sharp bite to your lower lip. Slowly, you sit up, matching her ferocity with a fumbling grab at her hip.

When she finally slows, after minutes or hours or years, her swollen lips a millimeter from yours,her sightless eyes lock with yours in the way they do when she’s going to be deadly serious.

You could almost swear she can see you.

“Sorry,” she says, settling back thoughtfully. You rarely see her falter and you don’t like seeing it now.

You stroke her hair away from her face and arch a brow, brushing fingers along her jaw. She chews on the inside of her cheek.

“You didn’t… actually… did you?”

The way she softens her tone just for you makes you want to lunge forward and kiss away each grating fear that has brought repressed insecurity to her mind. Terezi doesn’t show you this face very often, only when thoughts gnaw at her enough to where she crumbles before you. You’ve known her since you were both children. Loved her since you had an immature inkling of what love was. And you’ve only seen her break a handful of times, seen her cry once or twice.

And because you’re trash your first reaction is sarcasm.

“Yeah, Terezi, I’m definitely joking about cheating on you because I’m actually doing it. Genious. I _applaud_ your insight.”

“Fuck you,” she growls, untangling her limbs from yours and leaning against the arm of the couch. “Its a fair question.”

“Its ridiculous.”

“Then why wont you tell me?”

“I-” you swallow your words, glaring at her. Reason tries to form in your fogged mind but it all swirls up in the fact that you were with _him_ , and for some reason you’re ashamed of that. You try to tell yourself that you’re saving her from the animosity of even speaking of him, but you know for a fact that you don’t actually give a shit about that. You sigh deeply.

“Gamzee fucked up bad last night and I saved his ass.” You pull your phone out and read a few texts aloud to her. She is silent.

“...Couldn’t someone else have-”

“I don’t know.”

Terezi’s shoulders lose a little bit of tension, and she crawls back into your arms when you offer them. You rest your chin against her carefully-straightened dark hair.

“I don’t lie it,” she admits, jaw tight.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Eventually she relaxes into you and you turn your attention back to the movie, whispering actions in her ear to make her smile, even though she’ heard them a thousand times. You feel her doze against your chest. 

You phone buzzes. A soft snarl escapes you and try as hard as you can not to disturb your girlfriend when you reach for it with shaking hands. 

**WaNnA pLaY a GaMe Or SoMeThInG lAtEr?**

You sigh, muscles tight with unease as you prepare to type a quick “NO.” But your fingers still, your lips purse, and you drop a soft kiss against Terezi’ head before you respond.

**MAYBE.**

**== >**

“I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.” You drop bills and a handful of change on the counter, nodding at the apron-clad girl who hands you a warm styrofoam cup before you turn back around.

Gamzee flashed you that lazy grin. He seems sober enough for the time being, though his eyes are bloodshot and he’s as spacey as you remember. His face has been re-caked in that awful costume paint and its earning the both of you confused looks as you walk out of the campus’s solitary Starbucks back to Gamzee’s battered- if still obviously expensive- Dodge Charger.

You slide into the passenger seat and eye him warily as he gets behind the wheel again. You don’t necessarily trust his driving, even as he coasts easily along the road, one hand touching the wheel lightly. 

He’s still Gamzee and this gnarly muscle car still sports too many scars to be anyone else’s fault.

You sip at you coffee and stare ahead at the road, watching dead leaves catch the wind and fly up into the air around the car. A muffled song plays on the radio, too quiet for you to hear. 

“Where’re we going?” you ask, glancing to the side at Gamzee.

His lips pull into a tight half-grin, keeping his eyes forward. He takes a swig of his half empty cup, draining it and tossing it out the window before saying, “You’ll know it when you see it, brother.”

You sit in silence, listening to him hum along to whatever garbled shit is on the radio. Some nineties grunge garbage, you think.

It had been a few days since you went to his apartment and the act seems to have eaten you entire life, blanketing classes and homework and mundane activities with the tick, overlaying knowledge that he’s _there_ , he’s crawling his way back into your life and you’ve spent the last three days wondering just when you got so stupid. 

Video games were one thing. You could still think straight when separated from him by a screen. But agreeing to coffee has to be one of your worst ideas ever, this fact solidifying as he drives you farther and farther from town and into massive stretches of farmland, broken by stretches of dense woods. You shift uncomfortably.

Something clicks when you hit an overpass,looking to a small lake on one side, two man-made waterfalls roaring beneath you on the left. Willow trees dip lazily into the two rivers just past the waterfalls, which split off and wind around a little stretch of land dusted with withering grass and rusty play equipment, all settled around an ancient, towering birch tree that sits directly in the middle of the little park, its farthest branches reaching all the way to the overpass.

“Holy shit.”

Gamzee grins, turning onto the little gravel drive that leads to the also-gravel parking lot. A sign that looks like it hasn’t been painted since the eighties greets the both of you.

**_Minard Mill._ **

“Bringin’ memories back into that cluttered head a’yours?” he says, pulling the key out of the ignition and opening the door, letting chilled October air swirl around the two of you.

You shiver. “How the hell does this place still even exist?”

“Dunno. ‘Few years ago they was all up an’ tryin’a cut our tree down, though. Said the branche was gonna fall on the road and cause a whole motherfukin’ mess a’trouble.” He points toward the old birch, just past the bridge over the first narrow river, indicating a fading pink dot of spray paint on its trunk.

“Made plans and everything. Davebro an’ I was gonna come an’ protest, but they never did nothin’.”

You frown. “He never mentioned anything about this place to me.”

Gamzee doesn’t respond. The two of you make your way down the path and over the bridge to the tree, and you lay a palm flat against the whiteish-gray bark a smile just barely tugging at your lips.

“How long’s it been, brother?”

“Senior year.”

Back when you were stupid and the world was simple, the rusting old park had become home to three rambunctious boys on warm nights, smoke thick in the air and a sense of freedom that didn’t come with much else. You look over your shoulder and wonder if cans of cheap beer still float in the rivers or if the hazardous playground still remembers your touch. 

The park was idea because it was essentially abandoned, but the three of you hadn’t expected to become attached to the place.

“Jesus,” you breathe, looking at the tree again.

A hand, tanned not by the sun but deep Turkish roots, reaches into your field of vision and offers you a boost.

The tree splits off halfway up the trunk into three thick limbs, creating a bowl-like shape in the center. You scramble up into it with Gamzee’s help, settling back into one of the naturally-occurring seats and watching as he climbs in after you.

“Welcome home,” he rumbles, settling back in relaxation. He sees your eyes hunting over each worn and graffitied branch (A+L 4ever!) His gaze becomes amused.

A long finger gestures to a heavily-marked branch, and the deep engravings just beneath a “C.A. ‘05” and just above some scratched-out quote that hadn’t been there the last time you were here. The marks are still fresh, as if the trio had carved them with Dave’s brother’s knife just a day before.

**dave strider**  
 **KARKAT VANTAS**  
 **GaMzEe MaKaRa**  
 **‘09**

You run your fingers over the indents, eyes glazing over with the sudden rush of nostalgia. Graduation. Driving here to get wasted. The three of you grinning. 

Gamzee leans his knee against yours and you don’t mind because there’s only so much space in here anyway and it’s just a casual touch. You aren’t really fond of the peaceful smile the contact gives him but maybe it isn’t as big of a deal as it usually is. This is your place. This is where the three of you pricked your fingers and declared yourself brothers, and you probably did a lot more than brush knees under the influence of weed and alcohol and acid on those lucky nights that Dave managed to steal from his brother.

You relax and even feel at ease.

Gamzee shifts and hums slightly and tosses something into your lap. You hear the flick of a lighter.

“Dude, what the fuck.” You pick the blunt up off of your thigh and glare at it, then at him.

“Tradition, motherfucker. Tradition,” he says, and inhales deeply. he skunk-sweet smell float in a heady blanket around you.

“Not a chance.”

Smoke furls out from between his teeth when he grins.

“Come on, brother, it ain’t no thing. Can’t be at our spot without havin’ a little fun.”

Your lip curls and you toss the thing back at him. “I’m done with that shit. More than done. I’m fucking _crispy_ and _burned_ with all that.”

He laughs. “You ain’t gone all rigid on me, have you? Startin’ to all up an’ sound like your bro.”

 

You snarl. “Don’t you fucking dare compare me to-”

“Gonna start bitchin’ an’ preachin’ an’ tellin’ every motherfucker how to up an’ live they’re lives. That ain’t like you, Karbro. Relax.”

The drawn-out emphasis on the last word is what breaks you, and you lunge for the blunt and the lighter. 

You think of Terezi, and Kankri, and all the friends you’d promised you’d never touch a drug again. But most of all you think of the calm joy Gamzee’s face holds when you take the first deep breath.

**== >**

Dave once asked you why you talk about miracles so much. You couldn’t show him the colors you see and he wouldn’t take that magic fire in his veins and see for himself. You’d never been able to describe it.

But you think maybe that if Dave had ever payed attention to Karkat when he’s high, when he’s not quite far-gone enough to be quiet and cuddly but he’s there enough to curl his knees to his chest and smile and pluck at the thread in his sweater and look at you with no stress lining the dark circles under his eyes then he might just see.

You think that maybe you could show the world your miracles if they could see Karkat with a relaxed mind.

**== >**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayo Minard Mill is a real place btw. I used to go there with my mom when I was a kid and its really beautiful and I have my name in the birch somewhere I'm pretty sure.
> 
> also Gamzee has synethesia in this au, hightened by his drug use.
> 
> comments are all greatly appreciated, even if I'm not always able to answer them since my phone is a major dick and I only occasionally have access to a computer to upload this fic ^_^
> 
> I had a major scare last week when someone thew the notebook containing all ten or so chapters of this fic on top of the ockers in my school's band hall and i thought I was gonna have to start over and I cried so much this thing has eaten my life it is almost four in the morning and im uploading this at a friend's house ksjdhflksdhf


	4. they crowd your bedroom like some thoughts wearing thin, against the walls, against your rules, against your skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karkat Vantas is a fucking idiot, and "Just Say No" seems to have flown out the goddamn window.

“...and honestly, its been this way since we were _children_ , Karkat. Father let your selfish tendencies slide because you were younger, but _I_ pay for this house and _I_ work and _I_ have a lot on my plate and I won’t stand for this injustice any longer-”

“Jesus _fuck_ , Kankri, I’ll do the dishes if you shut the fuck up.”

Your brother folds his arms over his chest smugly, fixing you in a holier-than-thou glare.

“It _isn’t_ just the dishes. Its the blatant disrespect and the fact that you were out until four in the morning last night and you _waltz_ back in, _reeking_ of him while I stayed up and worried about-”

“I’m twenty fucking years old, you insufferable dickstain. I don’t need to constantly check in and totter on home before bedtime like a kid, alright?”

He wedges his tongue between his back teeth and studies you for a moment, face drawn in distress.

“Telling me that you would be out late wouldn’t have been hard. It would have taken you a few minutes to call.”

You look away. His voice is softer now and you’re bristling defensively, feeling like a caught child. Kankri is waiting for a response and you refuse to look at him, refuse to acknowledge the worried look in his eye.

“You promised,” he says, softer still.

You can’t take this.

Locking yourself in your room is juvenile and you know it. But you’ve never dealt with guilt in a mature fashion and the way Kankri is _looking_ at you made you crumble. You flop into your desk chair and ignore the way he raps at your door.

**\--terminallyCapricious [TC] began pestering carcinoGenecist [CG] at 10:15--**  
 **TC: HeEeEeY bRoThEr.**  
 **TC: SoRoRiTyS tHrOwInG a MoSt BiTcHtItS oF pArTiEs.**  
 **TC: ThE sPiDeR sIsTeR iS gOnNa GeT hEr HaNdS oN tHoSe LiTtLe MiRaClE tAbS**  
 **TC: ThAt UsEd To Up AnD mAke YoUr EyEs Go AlL mOtHeRfUcKiNg ShInEy AnD bRiGhT.**  
 **TC: AlL mIrAcLeS aNd CaLm AnD sNuGgLy.**  
 **TC: MoThEr FuCk.**  
 **TC: UsEd To Be Up AnD rAmBlIn BoUt LoVe AnD mOtHeRfUcKiN tRuSt Or SoMe MoThErFuCkIn ShIt.**  
 **TC: TeLlIn Me I wAs A cHoIcE aSs MoThErFuCkIn PiEcE.**  
 **TC: AlL dOwN wItH hUgGiN aNd ToUcHiN lIkE sOmE lItTle AnGrY kItTeN aLl GrUmBlY aBoUt It.**  
 **TC: SaYiN yOu AiN’t A gOdDaMn HoMo.**  
 **CG: SWEET NAKED TITLICKING JESUS WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP?**  
 **CG: IT IS TEN IN THE FUCKING MORNING AND I ALREADY GOT TO DEAL WITH KANKRI SPEWING STEAMING HOT BULLSHIT OUT OF HIS MOUTH.**  
 **CG: I DON’T NEED YOUR SPECIAL OFF-BRAND FORM OF CRIPPLING FUCKING STUPIDITY ADD ONTO THAT.**  
 **CG: COUPLED WITH THE JACKHAMER DOING INTENSIVE RECONSTRUCTION BEHIND MY EYESOCKETS, LIFE SUCKS MORE THAN USUAL RIGHT ABOUT NOW.  
** **CG: SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.**

You lean back and pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a few deep breaths and trying not to let out a wildly frustrated scream. Your head throbs, making a pained huff slip through your gritted teeth. 

**TC: HeEeY yOu’Re AlL bOpPiN iN tHe WaKiNg WoRlD.**  
 **TC: WhAt Is My MoSt AnGeLtItS bEaUtIfUl MoThErFuCkIn BrOtHeR uP aNd BeIn On ThIs FiNe AsS mOrNiNg?**  
 **CG: STOP. JUST FUCKINGSTOP RIGHT THE FUCK THERE.**  
 **CG: IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF A “FINE ASS” MORNING.**  
 **CG: IT IS FUCKING COLD AS THE DARKEST COCKLES OF HELL IN THE FUCKING MIDDLE OF OCTOBER, YOU ASSWHIFFING PIECE OF SHIT.**  
 **CG: IT IS COLDER THAN STICKING YOUR DICK IN A GODDAMN FUCKING FREEZER.  
** **CG: THERE IS NOTHING “FINE” ABOUT THIS SHIT.**

“Karkat, please, come talk to me. It appears I’ve triggered an angry reaction from you and I apologize but we really can’t just let this fester, we must get this resolved-”

**TC: AaHaHaHaA wHaTeVeR bRo.**  
 **TC: So WiLl YoU bRiNg YoUr PrEtTy MoThErFuCkIn AsS tO tHiS mOsT wIcKeD oF HoeDoWnS?**  
/strong > **CG: WELL WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT  
** CG: HELL NO. 

You throw a discarded sandal at the door, hearing Kankri’s started yelp when t slams and clatters to the ground. Your chest thuds harshly. 

Kankri squeaks softly behind the door. “Was that _really_ necessary?” 

“Would you fuck off?” you shout, snarled over your shoulder as you bring your legs up onto the desk chair and rest your chin on your knees. A drawn-out sigh flutters past your lips. 

The doorknob jiggles. “You are behaving like a _child_ , come out there-” 

You ignore him, turning back to the computer. 

His voice is quieter when he speaks now, and the serious, dangerous lilt there when he speaks next has chased away any loftiness, sends the hair along your neck straight up. 

“You shouldn’t be speaking to him again. It’s already messing with you.” 

Body rigid, fingers hovering over the keys of your desktop, you freeze and let the quiet words swirl in the air for a moment. Anger is a dim, roaring emotion in your sudden deadly calm. 

******TC: AwW, c’MoN, bRoThEr.** ** **

You growl under your breath and glare at the door, a strong, childish sense of rebellion and spite surging to the surface. You don’t honestly think Kankri has ever been more irritation and you could swear that your headache is about to crack your skull, your heart about to split your chest in two. You need to hit something. You need to scream. You need to get drunk or stone and you really, really need to tell Gamzee about this. 

******CG: FUCK IT. I CHANGE MY MIND. COME PICK ME UP WHEN YOU WANT TO LEAVE.** ** **

“Karkat, I’m sorry, please talk to me. Please.” 

You collapse into your bed and curl in on yourself, pulling your pillow over your ears to block him out. 

******=== >** ** **

******dont do it bro** ** **

You slept through a large portion of the day and woke up as the sun sank below the skeleton-like trees beyond your third-story window. You’d had you wrap the thick comforter around you as you stumbled out of bed, circling t tightly around yourself with a little shiver 

You arch an eyebrow at the text now, head tilted to the side in mild confusion. You hadn’t willingly separated yourself from Dave in the past couple of years, but you had allowed the drift to happen after high school. He hadn’t had the same ambition as you and gave Gamze the benefit of the doubt and while he’d never forced the two of you together, you’d found yourself unable to ignore the lingering smell of heady smoke in his apartment or the gray residue of face paint in his sink. 

You knew the separation had hurt him, especially since contact between the two of you was limited to haphazard game nights with he and John. So you’d figured that he and Gamzee were still friends. 

Sliding the phone open to reply, you slip your tongue between your teeth and perch on the edge of your coffee table. Kankri went to work while you slept and everything is quiet. You spent the evening getting ready, even straightening the apartment here and there because the guilt of your fight is beginning to settle in your chest. 

******WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?** ** **

You shrug into a hoodie and pace the apartment impatiently. Your body is wired and sensitive from sitting still all day, a hyper, jittery feeling flowing hotly through your veins and making you wring your hands. Foreboding and excitement twist around each other in your mind. 

Seeing Gamzee isn’t smart. 

Going to a sorority party with Gamzee is just plain _stupid._

You repeat this to yourself and fight back the excitement that prods insistently at your stomach. You’ll keep yourself in check, you won’t do anything heavy. Last night was far enough in this weird surge of rebellion and you don’t think you can handle much more with classes Monday morning and the steadily-growing pile of homework on your bed or the other friends you’ve neglected all week. 

Not to mention it’s wrong. 

It’s wrong, Karkat. 

You get a reply and groan to yourself slightly as you read. 

******dude gamzee is bad news. hes in way too deep. get out while you can.** ** **

You frown, brow knitting. 

******I THOUGHT YOU ASSHOLES WERE STILL JOINED AT THE JUNKIE HIP. WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR DEAL?** ** **

******no way man. shit went cray. you had the right idea before.** ** **

Despite feeling mildly smug for having been right, a deep, tugging sadness draws at you. 

It had always been Gamzee and Dave. The three of you. Best friends and self-proclaimed brothers, solidified the day you pricked your fingers under the crisp shade of your birch tree and joined your hands in the unsanitary ritual. You got high and you played games and Gamzee was the first to rumble “called it” the day Dave started his (now four-year) relationship with John Egbert and tried to hide the fact that he was crying behind his shades when you both said he was still a bro. 

The three of you. 

The final split of Dave abandoning Gamzee as you had is like laying the headstone on somber bouquet over your childhood. How long hadn’t they been talking? 

******HE SEEMS FINE NOW.** ** **

******bro hes been shooting up like every night.** ** **

Your lower lip wedges between your teeth, unease knotting in your stomach. It had to be an exaggeration. 

Gamzee had barely touched the stuff when you left, and the truth in the statement holds you in a vicelike grip. Dave wouldn’t lie anyway. Drugs like that are addictive as hell. 

You take a breath and let the word “morphine” roll down your spine like cold water. 

Gamzee should be dead, then. 

_Unless people always some to the rescue unless he’s using you like he uses everyone you must be so gullible-_

******WHATEVER. I CAN TAKE CARE OF M** ** **

You’re cut off by a new text flashing across your screen. 

******WaItInG iN tHe PaRkInG lOt.** ** **

You aren’t especially fond of the thrill of excitement that flutters over your chest, but you still stuff your phone in your pocket and half-run out the door.

******=== >** ** **

The sorority house is made from classic greek architecture, pillars running along the wrap-around front porch and ivy crawling up the side of the cracked and flaking stone walls. Painted-over graffiti is the only memorial of ages-old fraternity pranks and billowing curtains have been replaced by bedsheets patterned with little cartoon characters in the upstairs windows. Music and light floods from the place now, and Gamzee kicks a discarded solo cup out of his path on the way to the front door. 

You shiver slightly before you enter the warm, body-packed house ad are stopped automatically by a wall of people in the front hall. Gamzee shoves through them and you follow, thrust into the heat and alcohol-breath and jerky dancing and music loud enough to shatter your eardrums. You almost trip as you slip past a pair of broad shoulders and you reach out instinctively, a hand knotting in Gamzee’s shirt and you hate his low chuckle as he offers and arm to steady you.

A cool, high voice greets the two of you, taking a puzzled tone when the speaker notices that you and GAmzee are touching, you’re glaring, he’s teasing. 

“Gamzeeaaand Karkat!”

A fluttering stream of blue fabric envelopes Gamzee in a hug. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.

You haven’t ever actually gotten close to Vriska Serket, but she’s in a few of your classes and she’s some kind of popular bigwig in the sorority’s hierarchy system. This being code for the fact that she’s a kickass party planner. Her name is the kind that pops up frequently in everyday conversation and late-night stories, specifically if you chance a movie night with Dave and Egbert (something that hasn’t happened in a few months.) 

And now she’s clutching Gamzee like a lover and you’re not sure you’d like to dwell on the fact that your innards have begun to boil. 

She hugs you, too, with awkwardly lose arms and a plastered smile. You barely reciprocate, you nose assaulted with the thick musk of alcohol and weed draped around her like a cape. Her large gemstone-eyes are dilated farther than you thought possible and she takes your hands in hers when she pulls away. 

“It’s been too long,” she purrs. You wince before looking back at Gamzee for help. He grins. 

“C’mon now, sister,” he says, words a low rumble. “Lemme take Karbro around my own self, you dig?” 

Vriska snickers. “Yeah, I dig.”

Gamzee already looks dopey-eyed and has since he picked you up. You scowl at him as he takes your arm , leading you into the thick of the party where the music is swelling to ear-shattering volumes. You feel uncomfortable, claustrophobic, packed into a room of mostly-unfamiliar people, too close to everyone and especially too close to Gamzee. He is warm, almost fever-hot and after the crisp air outside, everything is too packed and dry and hot. You roll up the sleeves of your hoodie. 

“Over here,” Gamzee says, low and growling but still over the roar of the party. He gestured to a group sat in a haphazard circle, some draped over the couch, some cross-legged on the floor. A wave of relief washes over you as you recognize faces, familiar and some even friendly. 

Heeeey, Karkat!” John warbles, a cup in his right hand, grin splitting his face. Rose sits on his right, Kanaya on her other side with her arm slung over the blonde's shoulder. You eyebrow arches when you catch sight of Cronus, who is Kankri’s long-time boyfriend (and is therefore whipped and shouldn’t even be at this party.) He’s sitting on the floor with Meenah and Rufioh. He raises his eer and gives you an innocent look, raising thumb and forefinger to his lips and making a theatrical sucking motion, then shaking his head. No weed for me, bro, don’t go tattling on me to your bro. 

You smirk at him and follow Gamzee into the circle, sitting beside him on the floor, leaning against the couch and watching as he accepts a drink, stretching long legs out in front of him and letting foggy eyes pass over each person in the group. John continues his excited (drunken) conversation with Rufioh. You notice Gamzee’s eyes flitting from the Nitram to the door,back and forth over and over again. Rufioh looks up and his mouth sets into a pitying line.

“Sorry, man,” he says, and Gamzee visibly sags against the base of the couch. “I tried to get him to come, I really did.”

Your brow knits as you glance between the two of them. Gamzee’s hands are tight and shaking as he digs in his jacket pocket for a half-empty plastic baggie and there are a few loud exclamations. 

“And you didn’t say nofin’ before?” Meenah demands, while Rufioh’s face splits into a wide grin and Cronus looks on longingly. Rose rolls her eyes and Kanaya shrugs and John shifts a little uncomfortably in his seat, conversation forgotten. You see Gamzee freeze for a moment, looking apprehensively at the group, and you wonder for a moment if he’ going to protest.

But a long, slow smile spreads over his face. He shrugs, tosses the bag to Rufioh, and growls out a “You roll.”

You let the blunt pass over you the first time, but watching Gamzee take a deep, slow pull and feeling Meenah’s sharp prod in your side and watching Cronus’s eyes follow it around the circle like a begging dog’s makes you snatch it the next time and ignore Rose’s “tch” when you take a hit. 

The growing fogginess of the world around you is relaxing and you lean your head against Gamzee’s shoulder. You feel John slide off the couch and sit beside you, blue eyes dancing with worry as he studies you, to closely, breath reeking of booze and hands way too warm when they grasp your shoulders.

“Hey Karka-hic-Karkat are you you -hic- alright?” his words are slurred just slightly. You can feel Gamzee breathing against you, heartbeat almost in time with the pulse of the music around you. 

Somewhere, you think you’d normally be mad but you just took another hit and holy fuck this shit is fantastic and it’s been _so fucking long_ since you built up any kind of endurance and everything is so soft and warm right now. You nod and smile at Egbert with bleary eyes and he frowns, leaning even closer to you and talking too loud. 

“Dave said you were hanging out with him again,” he says, and you’re sure Gamze can hear him but when he doesn’t react, you don’t respond with anything more than a confused blink. For one thing, you haven’t spoken to John all that much since last year , when you’d had an orchestra class together with he and Rose (a poorly-chosen elective on your part-- you’d learned that you hate the viola.) and for another, you don’t know how he or Dave found out about this whole ordeal. 

The answer comes to you with a harsh, obvious slap. Dave and Terezi are talking. 

Guilt and jealousy wash over you in equal parts. There had been a six-month period in freshman year of high school when you hadn’t spoken to Dave, because he’d kissed Terezi even though he’d _known_ that you’d loved her since you had an immature inkling of what love even was, that your families were close and you’d asked her to marry you when you were both six and she’d cackled and that _obviously_ meant yes.

Of course you’d forgiven him and repaired your friendship as soon as their relationship ended, much to Gamzee’s relief. But she still only goes to him when she’s too frustrated with you because, no matter how hard you try, he still understands her better, still makes time for her even after he started groping Egbert’s ass in junior year. 

She’s talking to him because she can’t talk to you. Because she’s talking about you. Because she’s angry or scared for you. 

You take another hit and it tastes sour.

John is still looking at you with that drunkenly-concerned expression. You suddenly want to crumble in on yourself, crumble into Gamzee, spit out all the smoke you’ve just inhaled and call your girlfriend to apologize. You’re a horrible person. John sighs and rests his knee against yours. 

Gamzee’s attention is peaked suddenly and his head swivels to look at the two of you and there’s a flash of something in his eyes, sharp green brought out by the dark, almost black-violet dye in his unruly tangles of hair. John offers him a nervous smile and slides back onto the couch, where Rose and Kanaya have grown bored after denying the blunt several times and have decided to entertain themselves. Gamzee slides an arm over your shoulders with a low, agitated hum in his chest. 

You feel vaguely nauseous. Gamzee is too hot but you don’t want to move.

“Get the fuck off of me,” you snap, half-heartedly, but he only chuckles and the way you can visibly see his throat widening when he pulls on that cigarette (a new one, you think, maybe the third to go around now) and the way his hand brushes yours when he passes it to you keeps you trapped in the possessive circle of his arms. 

Warm. 

You feel warm in his grasp and he rubs a gentle thumb over the bone of your shoulder as you breathe in, deep, letting the smoke flow into your lungs, your blood, your brain, and everything feels like someone has thrown a thick blanket over you and Gamzee is the only clear thing. YOu lean against him heavily. His smile is dangerous, his eyes glittering, but you feel safe for the first time in years. People are talking. Meenah is calling out for more to drink and Cronus is saying your name and Rose is speaking in whispers to Kanaya and John, but all you can hear, feel, see is Gamzee.

He pulls you closer to him.

A drink is shoved into your hands and you look up, seeing Vriska through a foggy haze. She’s grinning, leaning low enough so that you can see the curve of her breast and the black lace of her bra. She looks from you to Gamzee and winks at him. 

He growls. 

It’s alcohol-laced punch and suddenly you’re thirstier than you’ve ever been in your life. The blunt makes its rounds to you again, after Vriska pulls it from Gamzee’s fingers and takes a long, slow hit. You smile at the both of them to let the smoke filter out between your teeth and let it out in a puff when Gamzee laughs. You love Gamzee’s laugh. You’re laughing. HIs arm is impossibly tight around you, keeping you close, keeping others away. Keeping you safe. You breath in his smell and let your eyes flutter closed. 

Another sip of your drink and sugar washes over your tongue, mixing in the back of your throat with something else, something bitter and Gamzee arches a brow when you grimace. But you gulp more, watching as conversation bounces back and forth across the circle, your body starting to feel uncomfortably hot again. 

“--worried about him. He’s in far too deep with this whole thing, Rose, and he’s just started to heal--”

“--and we gotta stop at the clinic for the next few pokes before we do anything else. Kanny’s gonna drive me there tomorrow ‘fore dinner.” 

“--nothing to worry about, Gam, I be you Tav misses you, too.”

“What he said. Send him somefin nice, tell him ya miss him an’ you were shellfish an’ all that. ‘Eel come around in no time.”

The fingers that aren’t clutching your drink clench and unclench against your thigh. A mild pain spikes in your jaw before you part your lips, taking another sip of your drink. That bitter taste is getting worse-- like battery acid and mustard. A fine sheen of sweat break over your skin, a chill runs down your spine, your muscles shake. 

You drink more because your throat is suddenly too dry, your eyes fogged.Facs float in front of your vision like sheets of rain in a storm. You can feel yourself shaking and thats around the time you realize that something is very, very wrong. 

“‘Ey kiddo, you alright?” 

Of-fucking-course your brother’s ex-rebel boyfriend is the only one sober enough to notice your sudden painful fever. You need to move, need to move, need to move. You dry tongue scrapes against the roof of your mouth and you nod, a little too hard, and drink again.

Gamzee is peering curiously at you now and you try to place reassurance in your wide, cheek-splitting grin but his gaze darkens, eyes shifting from you, to your drink, to Vriska. She’s biting back giggles. You lick your lips. 

The overpowering smell of Marlboro cigarettes and over-expensive cologne washes over you as Cronus slides across the floor to you, ignoring the warning look that Gamzee shoots him, and kneeling over you with a carefully-gentle look. 

“‘Eeyy, Karkat, you ain’t lookin’ too hot. Why don’cha just lemme see...”

When his hand tilts your face up, you can only think about how fucking _massive_ he’s gotten since Kankri first started bringing him around. He had long hair then and your brother had sat you down and explained so much and why your father couldn’t know and- 

Cronus is taking your drink and you almost protest but Gamzee squeezes you tighter and your arms are pinned. You watch Ampora take a sip, gag, and spit it back into the cup with a half-disgusted-half-worried expression. He looks up at GAmzee and mutters something, very low, that makes Gamzee stiffen and you think you catcher the soft syllables of “Molly.”

Gamzee’s head snaps to Vriska, who has broken out into uneven snickers. He looks agitated and for a moment you expect him to get angry, to hit her, to scream. 

He cocks his head to the side. 

“Now why’d you go an’ do a thing like that, messin’ with Karkat’s poor little head, sister?”

She keeps laughing. He smiles slowly and shifts, keeping his hold on you as he gets up. The room spins when you follow, but all you can think of is the way the way the cotton of your shirt drags up against your skin and Gamzee’s palm slips against the bare flesh of your stomach. The sigh you give is vocal. He seems amused. 

“Lemme take him back home, Gam, let him sleep this shit off--”

Cronus is ignored. You love the shovers you get when Gamzee speaks in his low, growling voice, the one that only combats his airy tones when he’s actually serious. He feels so warm and solid and you are so glad that he’s with you and you don’t know why it took so long for you to talk to him again because oh God, you missed this, you really really fucking missed this. 

You can feel everyone’ confused stares on you, Rose biting her lip and looking desperately worried and the others stoned beyond belief so that there isn’t much suspicion. 

“We’ll see y’all again, my friends, just let me take this sorry brother home and clear up his jumbled motherfuckin’ mind.”

He doesn’t look at Vriska as he leads you out, doesn’t hear the protests for you to stay, ignores Cronus’s begging to let him take you back to your own apartment, back to your brother. 

He leads you back out into the frigid air, which feels good against your feverish skin and gives you an excuse to cling tighter to him. You stumble slightly. 

“Easy, brother,” he growls, mouth pressed against the crown of your skull. You keen, just softly, and whisper something incoherent. 

You keep a tight grip on his arm as he drive you back to his apartment, face drawn into a perfectly calm mask. 

******=== >** ** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -loud hissing at the amount of time it took to type up and upload this trash-
> 
> it was like well over an hour just to edit this fuckin thing eugh.
> 
> aahaha oop wyld's headcanons are leaking through especially for Cronus can you guys it or is it not as blatant as i thought it was.
> 
> also John is a bby and he's even sweeter in later chapter haHA
> 
> it four in the morning and i'm kinda like woah over protective gamzee see i wrote this months ago so its like reading someone else's work and like
> 
> WOAH protective gamzee mmmmhhh
> 
> comments are greatly appreciated.


	5. a crown of gold, a heart that's harder than stone, and it hurts a whole lot, but its missed when its gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Terezi Pyrope gets even more rad and tragic, and there's a gutwrenching backstory.

You are panicking.

You’ve seen people freak right the fuck out on MDMA before, especially when the shit is laced with nasty little impurities that flicker into the brain and fuck shit up like nobody’s motherfucking business. You figured Vriska would help you replenish your dwindling stash, but now thinking about her face when she slipped Karkat the drink makes you blood boil. 

The worst part is that you’d known. You’d gotten all chilled up and suspicious when she’d handed him the drink, all the little hairs on your neck standing straight up. But you still hadn’t done anything. You hadn’t stopped her or stopped him. 

Maybe you’d wanted him to get fucked up.

You shove the heel of your palm into your temple and try to breathe correctly, feeling his fingers dig insistently into your other arm. Your head is foggy, still, weed-smell clinging to every fiber of your clothing and you know you shouldn’t be driving now but your best friend’s face is flushed, sweating, nuzzled into the carseat with the most blissful, terrifying smile you’ve ever seen. He closes his eyes. 

“Gamzee.”

You glance over at him. He’s muttering your name, over and over again under his breath like it’s sweet on his tongue. Your gut wrenches.

“Breathe deep, brother,” you say, marveling at how little your voice shakes. “Spider bitch gave you some sick-ass shit, all up and makin’ you snugly as fuck. Ain’t gonna snuff you out none.” You hope.

He lets out a soft hum and twines his fingers in your jacket, leaning toward you, forehead brushing your shoulder. 

You pull into the parking garage across the street from your apartment building and slowly help him out of the car, across the road, and up the stairs to the top floor and into your apartment. He’s blathering and you’re tuned out, focused entirely on getting him to lie down and sleep off the rush. The hospital is out of question. Taking him to his brother is even worse. You’ve taken care of molly highs before, but you’re not sure about this one, not sure about having Karkat’s skin so close, his body so warm and clinging to yours-

“Gamzee,” he repeats, following you down the hall to your bedroom. His breath is hot through the fabric of your jacket. 

The bed hasn’t been slept in since the last time he was here and the blankets are still rumpled and pulled away from the sheets. You press his shoulder, pointing to the mattress. 

“Lie down,” you say, the slightest tremor in your throat.

He’s clinging to you too tight, even after you’ve let go of him. Your chest hurts. He’s mumbling and he smells like dope and there’s gin on his breath and he is so-

-goddamn- 

-motherfucking- 

_-beautiful._

You swallow hard and disentangle him from you, blocking out the way he whines in your ear, grasping at your shoulders and your shirt and your hair. He looks sick. His eyes aren’t right. You tell yourself that he’s showing completely normal signs and you’ve seen people come down from this high just fine, you’ve done it yourself, but shit this is Karkat and Karkat has never tried ecstasy and his face is so beautiful and you can hardly stand it. He makes a lost, betrayed sound in his throat. 

“Too hot, it’s too hot-” 

“I know, brother, I know. You gotta lie down ‘fore you motherfuckin’ damage yourself of some shit. Lie down.” You push him back against the mattress, gritting your teeth at the little “uhff” he makes when his head hits the pillow. You’re gonna break. You’re too stoned and he’s too pretty and you’re disgusting, you’re vial, you use and you take take take and you are so motherfucking _sorry_ but- 

His eyes flutter closed and he sighs your name like a prayer. One eyelid cracks open. 

“Don’t leave. Don’t leave me, don’t-” 

Fuck, your throat is too tight. You lick your lips. “I’m right here, Karbro. Karkat. Sweet beautiful miracle brother. I’m right here, alright? You just go on an’ rest up.” 

A frown creases his face. “No, douchebag, _here_.” He pats the empty space on the bed with too much force and your heart leaps into your mouth, you can taste blood from biting your tongue, you need him, need his smell and his taste like you need dark and solitude, need his warmth like you need- 

You need to shoot up so bad you think you’re gonna scream. 

He leans forward off the bed and grabs the front of your shirt, yanking you down onto the mattress beside him and you’re too fucking high to protest and you _hate_ yourself. Your whole body is in agony as you adjust, his hand and the sheets and his sweater drawing hyper-sensitive lines over your skin. You are all awkward gangly limbs and bony points, but you settle in beside him, breathing him in greedily, and you choke when he curls in on you. His head is tucked under your chin. He’s fever-hot, breath heavy, hands clenching and unclenching in your shirt and you’re feeling all of it too much, and you know he’s feeling more and you want to bury yourself in the ground and never move or speak or breathe again. His breath paints dark blue over your chest. He makes sounds like he’s dying.

You can see’s Vriska’s face in your mind, all wrapped up in different shades of blistered red.

“Touch me,” he whispers.

Your throat goes dry and your head pounds murder and you _want-_

“...Karkat.”

“Please,” he says, louder now, pleading, shattering your chest with every word and indigo-tinted syllable and rise and fall of the pitch of his voice. “I’m fucking dying, I’m _dying_ , touch me, please.”

This is what being ripped in two bloody, gory pieces feels like, you think, and you touch him. You run your hand up his back and pull him closer to you, resting a palm on his cheek and trailing it down his neck and collarbone and chest. He huffs and whines and breaks you, tears you apart bit by bit and when he asks, begs for more, you keep from tasting his flushed skin only by closing your eyes, creeping your fingers under his shirt and ghosting soft pressure on his lower back that makes him keen, gasp softly when you press gently to the low dip of his abdomen. When your other hand threads through his sweat-damp hair you see his tears and you bury your head in his shoulder so you don’t kiss him. Red and blue electricity crackles behind your eyelids with every one of his breaths. 

You think he must like your words the best, the way he clings to them and gasps in half-formed conversation when you rumble in his ear. You tell him about precious things, beautiful things, threading in his name like a glossy red bow and nuzzling the damp spot your breath leaves on his throat. You tell him that he is the biggest miracle of all, that he is perfection, that you love him more than you love breathing and you don’t lie a single word of it. You cradle him close and listen to the soft shift of fabric and skin and his too-fast heartbeat. 

You could drown here, in this sea of red and blue and dark, misty violet, all caught up in his heat, in his sounds. You swallow past tears and rub circles between his shoulder blades as he calms, untenses, his breath slowing steadily into sleep.

His phone goes off in his back pocket. You fish it out, flipping through curiously. You abandoned all ideas of respecting personal space around the time he first let a moan slip into your ear. 

**4 NEW TEXTS: TEREZI**

**H3Y K4RKL3S C4N I T4LK TO YOU?**

**K4RK4T?**

**I N33D TO T4LK. PL34S3.**

**WH4T3V3R.**

**=== >**

You can feel him pressed against you and you are floating in blackness, but you can also see him. His face is rounder. His limbs are longer, his smile is so much more relaxed and you know that you’re seventeen, that you’re with one of your two best friends and you are so comfortable, pressed against his side, warm, stoned, grinning up at him. 

You are also twenty, too hot, your chest pounding, curling tight to a half-starved addict and you feel sick.

He was happy, then , even when the first frays in your group had begun and it was six months until college and the three of you hadn’t hung out since Dave brought Egbert to the park with you and something unbreakable tore. You’d jumped at the chance for a night with him, locking the door to your bedroom and ignoring your brother’s disapproving glare when Gamzee slipped you a small plastic bag and a pointed look. The world felt stable again with him lying beside you on your bed, smoke streaming from his mouth and his nostrils and you don’t complain when he curls and arm over you and pulls you close, smiling against your forehead. He’s warm.

Hot.

_Too hot, too hot too HOT-_

You can hear his voice but not his words, can’t remember what he said then. You are seventeen. You are seventeen and your world crumbled with the tiniest knick in your sturdy friendship. Your brotherhood, you thought, but Gamzee isn’t holding you like a brother and Dave brought love into the mix and you just can’t forgive him for that. 

You think you remember Gamzee saying that he loves you, but that could be the you that is twenty and intoxicated and clinging to him like he’s the only thing that exists. His hands are cold and they feel goo on your feverish skin, and you try to tell him that you love him, too, but the words don’t reach your throat. 

He asks you what will happen when the three of you graduate with a small voice, his face drawn in a serious light, eyes straight ahead and arm tight around you. Something in you you breaks at the fear in his voice, the way he shakes against you and holds you almost desperately. You spew shit. You tell him that you’ll always be brothers, that the bond between the three of you id unbreakable and that not even miles and countries and oceans could separate you, that he’ll always have you. You pour silver on your own tongue and eventually, hesitantly, he kisses it away with a chaste press of his lips and you can taste weed on him and for a little while, you forget everything in the curve of his collarbone. 

You feel like you’re going to vomit on his bed and you beg him to keep touching you, to hold you closer, to keep whispering those words in your ear and make you feel wanted, make you feel safe and warm and he tells you how beautiful you are. You don’t even have enough voice to call him a liar. 

You kiss him again, to feel the warmth of his mouth and the hitch of his breath, and you’re not sure which you does it. 

You are seventeen and you are twenty but either way, you are fervently kissing Gamzee Makara and you hate yourself more than you have ever hated him.

===>

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, you fucking should be.”

“I’m so sorry, please, just look at me.” You press your cheek against you girlfriend’s door, not forcing it open but not allowing her to close the small crack you are speaking to her through. “I passed out over at Gamzee’s and I never felt my phone. I’m so fucking sorry, Terezi, please-”

The door flies open and you stumble, nearly falling on top of her. Her face is frozen into a hard, angry mask, her glasses slightly askew on her nose, her cheeks slightly red and puffy below her eyes. Oh god, oh fuck, she’s been crying. She spent the night crying because of you. You are a goddamn monster and all you want to do is gather her into your arms and tell her, again, how sorry you are and how much you lover her and how beautiful she is. 

She grinds her teeth and leans against the doorframe. “Your voice sounds like hell. And you smell like someone dumped tequila on you.”

Running a hand through your hair, you bark out a tired laugh. “Yeah. Wild night.”

“And you couldn’t answer me?”

“Can I please just come in so we can talk?”

“No.”

You let out a low, frustrated sound and shove your hands in your pockets. She’s _looking_ at you, somehow, with blank, passive brown eyes. You hate it when you feel like she can see you, see the red rims around your eyes and the coating of sweat along your hairline, dried from the night before. 

“Come on, let me explain what happened, please-”

“I fucking know what happened,” she snaps, standing up straight and moving a step closer to you. She smells like coconut and tropical rain shampoo and you want so badly to buckle in and let her support your tired body. “You went to a sorority party with Gamzee fucking Makara. Dave gave me the whole fucking story.”

“John,” you mutter under your breath. She screws her face up and points a finger at your chest. 

“I nee-” she chokes slightly on the words, fumbling slightly and flitting her tongue over her lips. “I needed someone. You. I needed you. You fucking ignored me.”

“I was-”

“Having fun, getting drunk, yeah, whatever. You know you’ve hardly spoken to me since you started talking to him again? A few texts. That’s it. It’s not just the party.”

You beat your knuckles against your own forehead and try to breathe evenly, in through your nose, out through your mouth, your muscles tensing involuntarily. Terezi folds her arms and glares at you.

“I passed out after,” you say, trying to keep the edge out of your voice. “I was-” you cough, face heating. “Vriska… slipped me something.”

You can see the shudder pass over her body, and you think there’s worry somewhere in there. You wonder how much she heard, and how much third-hand information had kept true to the real story.

“You took something from Vriska?” she asks, voice quiet. You nod.

“She dropped something in my drink, Terezi, I didn’t notice, I was too-” shit.

“Too _what_?”

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Too what?”

Your jaw hurts from being clenched so hard. The weight of your own broken promises is heavy on your shoulders, and the dawning of betrayal in her eyes is enough to drive a knife through your ribs.

She bites her lip. “...Was it just weed?”

You nod.

“That’s not so bad.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What did she slip you?”

“Molly.”

She’s shut down completely and switched to auto-pilot. Her limbs rattle and her breathing is faster and she begins to speak several times before words actually come out. When it comes, it’s blunt and painful and it shakes you to the teeth.

“Did you fuck him?”

“Terezi-”

“Ecstasy, right? Did you?”

You suck in a breath and try not to remember the way he spoke to you, the way his hands felt, the way you begged-

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“No.”

She lets out a shaky breath and tosses back her hair. A small, tight smile crosses her face. 

“Well. There’s that at least.”

Your fingers snag in your hair when you try to run them through. “I fucked up.”

“Pretty bad, yeah.”

“Shit, are you okay?” Your voice cracks. 

Slowly, she nods, and you can breathe past the tension and she pushes into your arms with quiet little sobs and guilt eats at you and you fucked up. You can feel it in her shoulders and in the way she buries herself into you the way a child would. You’ve broken her, you think, and you want to throw yourself off the nearest cliff.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, a slow mantra. “This is all my fault, I’m so sorry, I’ll stop talking to him again, please just stop crying-”

She hiccups into flat laughter. “Don’t flatter yourself.” She steps away from you, running her fingertips under her eyes and dropping her shoulders back into a relaxed stance. You mutter something, confused, and she offers you a watery smile. 

“‘Tula and I had a fight. It’s just stupid stiff. So don’t flatter yourself with the blame bullshit, got it?”

You nod and hold her again and ask if you can you use her shower before you go home and see Kankri. She allows it and doesn’t join you, and listens to a movie by herself to drive the point home that you’re on thin ice.

She still kisses you before you leave, though, and the knot inside you loosens fractionally.

Going home to Kankri is another story. You consider staying out until he goes to class at three (he’s in the same law program as Terezi, though you think he plans to be more than a lawyer) and then work at six, but guilt at your argument yesterday is gnawing persistently at your stomach. He doesn’t greet you when you open the door. He’s in the kitchen, furiously scrubbing at the caked-on grime of a pan, the sleeves of his sweater pushed to his elbows and his hair disheveled out of its usual tidy swoop.

You move cautiously into the apartment, clearing your throat softly. He doesn’t respond.

“...Kanny?”

He slams a plastic cup harshly into the sink, attacking it with the bristled scrubber and ferocious vigor. Something in you sees the humor in this, the way your calm and meticulous brother is blatantly crumbling, but realizing that it’s your fault that stress creases his face is enough to place a weight in your core. He tosses the cup unceremoniously into the dish drainer and moves onto the next. You sigh.

“Kankri, come on, I’m sorry. D’you want me to dry those?”

Nothing. Being a kiss ass to Terezi isn’t hard, especially when you honest-to-god feel guilty for hurting her. But years of masculine and brother barriers have beaten you into an awkward stupor while trying to bridge the newfound gap here. Kankri still doesn’t turn around and your stomach is full of rocks.

“...I’ll get the trash out. See this? This is me helping out.” You open the bin and hoist the splitting trash bag out. “I’m being productive. I’m giving you less to do.”

There’s a sharp outburst of breath and the tapwater is shut off with a slam. He whirls on you, brandishing the scrubber.

“Would you like a medal for doing chores, Karkat?”

You pause, trying to keep the bag hovering over the trash can to contain whatever putrid liquid is leaking from it. “The fuck are you-”

“I was told that you went out and partied last night by several reliable sources.” He advances on you, lecture plain in his eyes. “Cronus and Meenah personally and the last I heard from Cronus was that you were acting sick and that he thought you should be taken home.”

Your blood runs cold and the only thing you can think is that Kankri is going to force you into a drug test.

“What else did he tell you?”

Kankri’s voice lowers and octive as he calms. “That you’d been drinking. Which, might I remind you, you’ve still got quite a few months before you’re even allowed to-”

“Right, yeah.” You make a mental note to thank Cronus and tell him that maybe he’s not as much of a dick as you usually tell him he is. “I’m sorry, Kankri, really.”

His lips are pursed tightly. He turns back around with a heavy sigh, something dark and tired crossing his face before he shakes his head slowly and murmurs “I don’t want to deal with this now. I apologize for losing my temper.”

And that’s that. You slink away to your room with a dragging lump in your chest, the loud clank of dishes behind you.

**=== >**

You can’t stop touching your lips. 

He kissed you once back when young and naive were in and you begged him not to leave you like Dave was trying to to leave the both of you for his new buck-toothed boyfriend. You had been eighteen and tall and puckered with acne scars and he had been beautiful, small and soft with the slight ghost of baby fat still on his cheeks and even if it hid what would one day be the angular lines of his jaw and cheek bones, it was still dusted with little freckels underneath big dark eyes and girl-lashes and a deep red flush. He’d always looked like and angel with curly dark hair and a scowl, while you stayed lanky and box-dyed your hair purple. 

But he still kissed you that one night and promised that you would never be alone, that you would always be a trio and there would always be love here, that he would always be there. And for once you thought that he might think that you were beautiful, too, even with nicotine stains on your teeth.

“Brother” was never the right word for the two of them. They were more, like there was a thick cord that held the three of you together like the hands on little paper dolls, like the plastic tag on a coat that just won’t come off. You used to read and when you read about the red string that connects soulmates, you thought that the three of you must be tangled up in it, tied tightly to each other with clasped hands and the hedy stink of smoke seeping into your very skin. 

It was after that mental image that you started talking about miracles. 

But then one day Dave, you brains, your clever instigator, tied that string around John Egbert’s wrist and and bound the two of them together. You think hell is the day that John came to the park and Dave pushed him on the swings while you and Karkat got stoned up in your tree alone. Dave had looked happier than you’d ever seen him.

That was the first fray in your red string, and you never blamed Dave for love, because love was the biggest miracle you could imagine, but when everything after that started to crumble slowly you held on to your two soulmates with an iron-tight grip and refused to let go.

When Karkat kissed you you thought that things might be okay again, that they would get better and you could start holding his hand when the two of you drove to Wendy’s at midnight. But he acted like he didn’t remember it and he was gone a year later.

The day he left you he was yelling, and you;d grinned. He’d called you an idiot and you’d agreed, trying to take the needle back from him. You didn’t care then that you were disgusting. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

You never expected Dave to come to your rescue after Karkat left and went to college and got a girlfriend. But you found yourself in his apartment getting high or drinking or talking about Karkat every damn night. And after a few months he introduced you to the little homeschooled boy you’d never met and his name felt good on your tongue and so did his teeth, and his hands were like heaven when they stroked through your hair. You didn’t mind that he couldn’t smoke because of his asthma, that you had to lift him into bed at night, (he wasn’t heavy, anyway.) You’d begun to feel normal again, and you hand’t done anything stronger than acid in months. 

Tavros was the first thing to make you feel human again since high school. With him things were calm, soft, pulling the air in and out of your lungs at a normal pace and tucking you into bed before two in the morning. He was quiet and gentle and when he smiles, it makes you foget, for a little while, that you’re awful and disgusting and that needle scars mark your arm like a morbid quilt, just above the crook in your elbow. When he kisses them you think you could maybe, finally relax. Could be happy. 

But the fact remained that you are awful and disgusting and Tavros’s patience could only extend so far, and even when you took his advice and got help the only reward was a steady stream of Xanax that held you comatose, locked you in the fierce comedown of your primary addiction. The fights started when he caught you taking an extra dose. 

You don’t like to think about the day you saw him cry or the night he told you that he needed a little time. 

You touch your lips again. 

Karkat kissed you.

All the sick and twisted context aside, he kissed you and he kissed you softly on your chapped lips and you caught the ghost of the taste of fruity alcohol and even something sweeter, something wholly Karkat. The feel of his skin under your fingertips was so dirty and so chaste and you feel so blissful and so guilty and more than anything, you want him to come back so you can hold him and hear his voice. You thought losing him was the worst thing that could happen. But having him so close hurts like an open wound, knowing that he can’t stand you when he’s sober but needs you when he’s not. 

Not as much as you need him, of course.

You’re battling a sick stomach as you toss back the dregs of a can of cheap beer. You took almost too-much of your miracle shit a while ago (you’ve been careful this time, suffered through the comedown by biting your nails and ripping at your hair until it was safe to start drinking.) and you think you can hear voices, swirling in your bloodstream and telling you how dead you should be by now. How much he hates you.

Staring at the blank television is a numb distraction. You are alone, you tell yourself, repeat it in your head like a chant. Karkat isn’t here hating you because you are all alone in this big empty apartment, aching to touch and be touched but also feeling as if your skin is raw, your bones splintering, your blood rushing in your ears.

“Not listening,” you slur out, staring at empty air and feeling a knot bubble in your throat. Karkat’s slew continues. You bite the rim of your beer can.

You curl onto the floor, clutching weakly at your stomach, and fall asleep with his voice in your ear.

**=== >**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the lesson of the day is that terezi is queen and gamzee is fucking trash
> 
> karkat is fucking trash
> 
> im trash goodnight


	6. they were kids that i once knew, now they're all dead hearts to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kankri almost has good intentions, but fucks it up. Also Karkat is very, very cold and Mituna Captor makes a strange appearance.
> 
> And Gamzee is, as usual, stoned.

“That sweater looks good on you.”

You start, glancing up at Kankri. You’d gone over to Terezi’s early this morning, hoping to give your brother more time to cool off. The evening before had been filled with tense silence and a few sudden, violent outbursts from each other. Patching up the loose ends you created has been a several-day process, and you’re still not sure that Terezi has completely forgiven you. Kankri is a wholly different challenge.

A timid smile tugs at your lips, hostility bubbling just underneath your subconscious. Kankri doesn’t just give compliments, he’s a master of fucking it all up and-

“I mean it. It hides that belly that you’re- _oh goodness no wait Karkat that was-”_

You laugh stiffly. “Yeah, thanks Kan. I can feel the fucking love over here. Way to go. A plus. Best brother award is sitting right up my ass.” You turn away from him and growl deep in your throat.

Kankri runs a palm down his face and sighs shakily. When he looks up at you again, you can see a pale, strained expression poking through his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever.”

“Karkat.” He’s frowning, tugging absently at the collar of his sweater, eyeing you speculatively. You feel almost caught, like a small creature trapped just at the head of a storm , trying to outrun it but not quite fast enough. His face says anger and you want to tell him to back off before you match it.

“What.”

He winces. There are dark circles beginning to line the underside of his eyes, a family trait finally catching up with the only one seemingly exempt from it. “I’m trying to make nice, here. I thought that was the desired goal in this situation.”

An icy chill shoots down your spine and your lips curls, you eyes narrow. He actually takes a step back, hands twitching as if he wants to hold them out and defend himself. Thats the game today, you think bitterly, licking your dry lips. Defense and offense.

“What I _want_ ,” you say, voice low. “Is to forget anything happened and for you to chill the fuck out, okay? I’m fucking sorry for fucking up and making you worry or whatever, I’m sorry for not pulling my weight. Alright?” You take a step toward him, scowling. “Just let it go and stop acting like I’m gonna flip my shit at any goddamn second.”

His response is dry. “Will you?”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean.”

He sighs, resting a hand on his hip, shoulder slumping as if he’s been broken. There’s still malice in him and you want to run away. He shakes his head slowly. “You got father’s temper after all, didn’t you?”

Oh hell no.

“Lets not.” Your voice is dangerously low, you gut feeling the jab fester deep and piercing inside of you. You know it’ll blow, any second, reaching up through you in screaming and fury and maybe, just maybe, you’ll actually hurt Kankri and for the time being you can’t remember why that's a bad thing. “Lets _fucking_ not.”

“Vantas Temper,” Kankri says airily, putting exaggerated quotations around the phrase. Something in him looks broken and that makes you all the more angry. “You used to throw the worst tantrums as a child and father always let you, do you remember that? Because the _Vantas Temper_ couldn’t be contended with, some ridiculous genetic explosion and god forbid a child doesn’t get it, because then they’re lost. Because certainly the good one doing his chores is the wrong one. The one who screams and cries is always right.” He clenches his jaw and looks up at you. “You’re obviously always right, aren’t you?”

“Are you really one to fucking talk-”

“And do you know the only person who never fell into that crockfull of insanity?”

“Don’t you fucking say it Kankri, I’ll-”

“The only person who believed me when I said that you were _full of shit_?”

He waits for your expression to twist up before he knows that he’s won, lets his mouth twist into a cruel smile. It’s a manic, disheveled thing, and you almost expect and actual blow.

“Mom.”

“ _Fuck you_.” And then you’re lunging at him, grabbing fistfulls of his sweater and shaking him. His eyes aren’t afraid, only heavy-lidded and resigned and you hate him even more for it. 

“She used to leave notes in my lunch and tuck me in after father said I was too old, did you know that? You never once fooled her. She knew what you did, who your friends were. She and I always believed you could be so much more. Despite all that she and I both always knew you were good. And she still treated us like _royalty_.”

“She’s dead, Kanny,” you half-snarl, throat tight. You shake him again. 

He knows he’s got you. He reaches up to pat your shoulder gently, smile ebbing off of his face. “And what would she think if she weren’t?”

You drop him. His head makes a satisfying thud on the floor, even if he rolls out of the way before your heel can connect with his nose. Your chest physically aches. Your hands are trembling. Kankri is sitting up, slowly, his sleek black hair ruffled so that the two of you look even more alike. 

“Why are you doing this?”

He looks somewhere between a deranged prince and a kicked animal. “What would she think of you? You, just starting to get yourself together, doing so well, and then you let him back into your life? And everyone was so proud Karkat, everyone, and now you’re off smoking weed and not checking your drinks at parties like I’ve told you to do a thousand times-” He snorts. “Don’t look at me that way. Cronus pitied you enough to not tell me, but Meenah knew better. Did you explain all this to Terezi? That you went home with him? That you were draped over his arm like a-”

“Shut up.” Your face is screwed into a pained, furious mask. “Shut up shut up _shut up_.” Your fingers reach up to cover your ears like a child, barely resisting the urge to kick and punch and beat your brother until he can’t say these things to you, until his jaw doesn’t work, until the image of your mother is wiped clean from the backs of your eyelids. Your throat emits a primal, broken sound. Kankri is stoic.

“What would she think,” he says, softer now. His breath is heavy and sweat beads on his face, dark eyes wide enough that you can see the whites around the deep irises. “What would she think of him? Of you?”

There is a drawn-out moment of silence in which you can hear the gravel in his breath, feel the tension crack and spark like electricity in the air. Kankri looks insane, helpless and fighting all at once. Using her. Using her as a weapon. You swallow hard and force yourself to stand straight, staring at him for a long, painful moment, and then something in you snaps.

“Fuck this,” you murmur. You turn on your heel, striding into the hall, to your bedroom, not bothering to slam the door behind you.

He scoffs, following you closely. “Is hiding in your room _again_ really going to solve anything?”

You don’t respond. Don’t look at him. You grab your school bag from your bed and tear old papers from it, tossing them carelessly out into your room until only your battered, dying laptop is left. You replace the paper with handfulls of clothing, completely random jeans and sweaters and boxers stuffed haphazardly into the bag. You hear your brother make a startled sound behind you.

“...Karkat?”

Slinging the bag over your shoulder, you do a once-over of the room and glance at things you may need now, or you could come back for when things have calmed down. If they calm down. The strap digs into your shoulder. 

“Wait, Karkat, I-”

You push past him out the door, floor creaking loudly beneath your feet. The apartment is otherwise eerily quiet, and Kankri seems to be choking on his words. 

“I’m so sorry Karkat, that was-- Th-that was out of line. Please, don’t--”

“I’m done with this shit,” you say, stopping at the front door and balling your hands into fists. “I’ll--” you look down at your shoes, fingers clenching, chest hammering. You can hear his labored breath behind you. “I’ll see you later, Kan.”

You hear him shout as soon as the door clicks shut behind you.

**=== >**

Terezi lives with Latula. Latula wouldn’t want you in her house in a million years, let alone when things have been so on-edge. Dave and John share a small apartment on campus, barely big enough for the two of them as it is, and you don’t even talk to them as much as you used to. Sollux is an option, but he would be too rational in this situation, tell you to go home to Kankri and let this blow over, not to mention that you’ve hardly spoken to him since you’ve begun speaking to Gamzee again. You left Sollux in the midst of an argument. He probably feels like shit.

You definitely feel like shit.

Jade. No. She would be too much, hardly even knows anything about this situation and doesn’t deserve to deal with you like this. You can’t remember the last time you actually had a conversation with her. Rose. No. There’s the rationality part again, and the tag-team of she and Kanaya would be enough to throw you over the edge, if they didn’t do it themselves. 

You try desperately to calm your breathing as you shift uncomfortably on the dirty, rattling city bus, tucked away three seats left of a woman and her two loud sons and in front of a boy who seems just a bit younger than you. You hear some gravely, fast-paced song filtering from his headphones and he arches a brow when he catches you staring. You curl your lips up, a silent “what the fuck are you looking at” stamped across your face. 

Eridan lives alone, but word would get back to Cronus eventually, and then to Kankri. Nepeta would get the wrong idea, would be too willing, too excited to have you, and you really really don’t want her truck-sized adoptive brother finding out about you staying with her if she brings it up. You doubt you’d keep a single limb. 

The bus hisses to a stop and the four other passengers get off, leaving you alone on the bus at ten thirty at night and the driver is eyeing you through the rear-view mirror expectantly. You wave him onward, then press your face into your hands with a low curse. Unless you honest-to-god want to bother people you’ve hardly spoken to since graduation, you have one option left.

“Hey, buddy, you gettin’ off at the next stop?” The bus driver is still peering at you curiously.

You glance out the window. The bus has made it to the upper-middle-class side of town, winding through houses like the ones you used to see in cartoons-- all of them the same model, the same color. The neighborhood gives way to rich-people condos and townhouses and apartments up ahead. You heave a sigh.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

You watch rain that will probably turn to sleet through the window, hear the needle-sharp ticks as each drop hits the glass. October is going to give way to November soon, and the icy drizzle proves that winter is all-too close. You rest your cheek against the cold surface of the window and sigh, adjusting the strap on your bag. The bus slows to a stop near the entrance to the apartment complex. 

“You sure you wanna be walkin’ out in this, kid?” the driver asks. As if the reinforce his words, the rain comes down in a new, forceful wave and the wind batters against the side of the bus. You stand, slowly, and nod. 

“Sure. I love this weather. And I could use a motherfu-- oh, hell.” You clear your throat, ignoring the driver’s raised eyebrows as you make your way to the exit. “I could use a walk.”

You pull the hoodie strings tight around your neck when the first of the cold hits you like a truck, wet and icy and its almost all you can do not to let slip a yelp when a few half-frozen droplets make their way down the back of your neck. The bus speeds away, leaving you to stand in watery lamplight and shiver, turning your head in the direction of the towering building, toward the edge of the wealthier area of downtown, along the forest line. A car alarm goes off in the parking garage across the street.

You’re drenched within minutes, water dripping from the tip of your nose, you hair, your bare fingers and the fabric of your bag. You shove it under your hoodie to protect the laptop inside, you feet slapping loudly against the wet pavement. Your socks are wet.

The walk is short with how fast you’re moving. Your teeth chatter as you make your way into the front lobby, pulling once at the locked door and swearing loudly. You press the buzzer with 313 label. There’s no answer, but the door clicks open. 

You ride the elevator to the top floor, ten stories up and a long, damp ride. You can hear your own breath echo against the metal walls until a deafening ding lets you out into the hall, empty and dim. Apartment 313 is toward the front, overlooking the bright downtown street below. You stuff your hands in you pockets, sniffing loudly, and knock on the door. 

Sollux’s brother answers, looking rushed and slightly fearful. He sputters when he crashes into you, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. You stumble backward with a wordless growl.

“Mituna--?”

“Shit, fuck, sorry.” He looks nervous, dark hair sticking out at odd angles from under a gray and yellow beanie, falling off of one side of his head. He’s clutching a pill bottle to his chest, eyes wide, a blue-and-brown pair staring fearfully right into yours. “Sorry, Karkat, I didn’t mean to--” he coughs, bottle rattling in his tight fist. “Didn’t mean to run into you, man.”

You furrow your brow at him. “It’s whatever. Are you okay?”

His voice is too rough, too high when he cracks a wide smile and answers, “Aw yeah, yeah! S’all good. Just visiting an old friend, right? Just like you?” He laughs to himself. A long, tan hand falls on his shoulder and his entire body jerks when he looks back at Gamzee like a struck dog.

“Easy there, motherfucker. You gonna go on an’ talk to Kurloz like I done up an’ asked?”

Mituna shifts nervously. You stare back and forth between he and Gamzee, watching the tense exchange with the hairs on the back of your neck raising. Gamzee doesn’t look right, his grin strained, dark green eyes tight around the edges. Genuine fear sparks over Mituna’s face and he shoves out of Gamzee’s grip, pulling a dark laugh out of your friend’s throat.

“Free of charge if I do, right?” He clutches the pill bottle closer and you aren’t sure that you want to be witnessing this.

Gamzee’s smile tightens. “As promised, ‘Tunabro. You go an’ run along now. I got me some company.” He turns his gaze on you and visibly relaxes, face regaining its usual lazy air. You swallow hard. “Hey there, brother.”

You sneer up at him and he laughs, softly. Mituna mutters something and reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck. The movement is stiff, compulsive, and when his hat moves a little more to the side you can see the long white scar that runs from his hairline to the left side of his brow. He shoves past you to hurry down the hall, mumbling and rubbing the back of his neck., jacket half-falling off of one shoulder.

You face Gamzee. He ushers you in eagerly into the apartment, settling a palm on your lower back that you shake off with a shudder. Your wet clothes cling to your body like cold rags.

“What the fuck was that all about?” you ask, after he’s tossed a towel at you and gone into the living room, gesturing at the couch for you to sit. “What did you give him?”

“Lithium,” he says, utterly calm and collected and you have to stop your jaw from dropping. “Brothers’ got wicked crazy issues goin’ on. Only offerin’ my services.” He flicks wild hair out of his eyes and ensnares you in a euphoric grin.”Now, what can I be owin’ the pleasure of seein’ you, my most drenched and shiverin’ of brothers?”

It doesn’t feel right for him to call you brother, now, and you really don’t want to dwell on that. You let out a shaky sigh and rest your head in your palms, finally letting your shoulders slump. You hear him make a soft noise in the back of his throat that sounds something like concern.

“What’s the matter here, Karbro?”

You feel his hand ghost across your cheek and you don’t turn away from it, letting him brush soaked hair away from your face. You remain still, your breath going steadily more rapid as you contemplate how to explain this. Kankri’s words still sting like branding irons on your stomach. You want to curl into a ball and forget that the argument happened, because you know that Kankri was only shoving your own fury back in your face and blasting you with years worth of pent-up bullshit that he hadn’t had the balls to touch before. Try as he might to deny it, his temper exists and try as _you_ might to deny it, you understand him.

You also really want to hit something. 

The hand against your face works fingers into your hair and pets gently, forcing a small, appreciative sound from your throat. Gamzee kneels in front of you, eyes more lucid than you’ve seen them in years. He looks worried.

“Karkat?”

You suck in a breath and reach up to touch his wrist. He blinks and allows you to move his hand into your lap, playing with his long, tan fingers.

“Kankri picked a fight with me today.”

He makes a soft, understanding grunt, gazing at you steadily. 

“He’s pissed about the party. He heard everything.” You pause, trying to let words form correctly along your train of throat. Gamzee rests a free hand over yours. You refuse t break down here. “I. Fuck. I snapped at him and we both flipped shit and he--” you choke on the words when a hollow feeling grips your stomach and makes you swallow past a hard knot in your throat. “He brought up our mom,” you finish, voice small.

“Shit,” he breathes. shifting closer to you. The hand in your hair cups the back of your neck gently. “That ain’t okay, man. He had no right.”

You definitely don’t hiccup and lean into his palm.

“He ain’t got no right to be sayin’ that shit to you.” His voice has reached a deep hum of sincerity that you vaguely remember from years ago, before he became one giant fucked up mess. You relax into it, feeling with all of you like a sixteen-year-old with intense anger issues once again. “Don’t you go listenin’ to him on this.”

“He said she’d be ashamed.”

Gamzee shakes his head, some deeply-angry glint shining in his eye. “Bull-motherfckin’-shit. I remember your mama. She loved you somethin’ fierce.” He pauses. “Both of you.”

You shift, putting some space between the two of you. He lets out a soft sigh, body relaxing, and lifts himself onto the couch beside you. 

“I’m bettin’ he’s worried about you. Tryin’a make sure you’re takin; care of yourself.”

“I know.” You bark out a soft, bitter laugh. “He’s pissed that I’m talking to you again.”

“You agree with him?”

“Yeah.”

Gamzee nods slowly, staring thoughtfully ahead, eyes fixed on the wall. You shift uncomfortably.

“He probably won’t let me come home yet.” Its a lie and you both know it, but you hope that maybe he overlooks it. He settles his gaze on you for a long moment before he smiles.

“Now. Can’t have you on the motherfuckin; streets, can we?” He stands, taking your sodden bag from you and disappearing down the hall. He returns with clothes that look almost-clean, pyjama pants and a shirt that looks like it will drape off you like a blanket. 

“‘Till yours are dry, huh?” he says, offering you the bundle.

Ten minutes later you’re cross-legged on the dry side of his couch, moth-eaten quilt wrapped around you softly-shivering body and you watch him as he lights a cigarette, watch his lips wrap around the end, watch the way his throat moves as he takes a deep pull. You know it isn’t just tobacco but you take it from him anyway, taking an almost grateful drag while he settles beside you again, fce quizzical and pleased all at once. You pass the joint back to him.

“Its like--” you mumble, the littlest air of fogginess creeping over your head. “Its like everything is going straight to shit. Terezi is pissed at me and Kankri is pissed at me and everyone is telling me that you’re total shit.” You watch him frown at Terezi’s name. “And they’re definitely right,” you add. “You’re legitimately the most fucked-up asscastle I’ve ever met. But.” You lean back into the couch and swallow hard. “I’m pretty sure I’m total shit too. So.”

“You know that ain’t right,” he says. Softly. He’s close to you and it feels safe and warm and you want to break down in tears from how gentle his eyes are. 

“It is.” You take the blunt back and take another pull. “I fell back into this bullshit. I haven’t spoken to anyone but you and like. Three other people? No. Two. Two other people in weeks-- y’know I left Sollux in the middle of a fight? He’s probably convinced I hate him or some shit. I fucking saw Terezi _cry_ yesterday. _What_ \--” you snap when Gamzee pulls another face at her name. “Seriously, what the assfucking shit do you have against my girlfriend?”

He’s silent for a long moment, blowing smoke slowly into the air.

“Nothin’, brother.”

“She’s probably the only thing keeping me some semblance of stable. Why she hasn’t left yet is way beyond me.”

“Sounds motherfuckin’ miraculous.” His voice is monotone. You furrow your brow.

“What the fuck ever, dude.”

A warm sense of relaxation has begun to pool over your body and you sigh deeply. You knee is brushing Gamzee’s and you pull it away with a small frown.

“This is fucked,” you murmur, eyelids drooping. There’s a long, long stretch of silence and you let him put his arm on the back of the couch behind you. 

You need to talk . To do something.

“So why’d you and Dave stop talking?”

You feel him stiffen for an instant and then relax, staring at the ceiling.

“...Motherfucker wasn’t about my miracle shit no more. Up an’ stormed out a few months back.”

“I don’t blame him. Putting up with your shit is like a fucking part-time job. I remember worrying about your sorry ass when we were still kids, I can’t imagine that shitstorm _now_.

“Ain’t you part of it now, though?”

You’re quiet. You lean on him now, fighting back a yawn. You still cold and still shaking and his warmth is drawing you in close.

“What about Tavros?” you ask quickly, skirting around the subject.

He does more than just go stiff. You feel a full shudder pass over his body and he shifts away from you, staring at the floor with a completely blank expression. You sit up, blinking, watching him stand and put the joint in the ashtray. 

“Gamzee?”

“I’ll see you in the mornin’, Karbro.”

His footsteps echo down the hall and the door clicks loudly behind him.

**=== >**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really cant tell you guys how fuckin sorry i am that this update has taken so long.
> 
> i took a long break from writing this story, because i felt it becoming very forced and just generally gross and i needed some time. i could say that i've been going through a lot, and it'd be true, but its still not much of an excuse for this ridiculously late chapter.
> 
> i hope you guys can forgive me for this lateness and likely future lateness. 
> 
> on the bright side, i HAVE started continuing this fic. i have roughly ten chapters written down in my notebook. 
> 
> also, while typing this "karkat" kept coming out as "kakrat" and i giggled a lot. 
> 
> (comments and reviews are always so greatly appreciated, and i really really wanna thank all the nice people who said nice things about the last chapter <333 youre all positively wonderful.)


	7. now wait, wait, wait for me, please hang around, i'll see you when i fall asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat, you literal fucking idiot. 
> 
> Gamzee, you trahslord.
> 
> Or course we're not mad at you, Dave dear. Congrats on being a decent human being. Your father and I are _so proud..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *spits this out like six months late*
> 
> i dont actually have excuses for late updates anymore, im sorry, im so so so sorry.

The first few weeks aren’t hard. You learn the topics to avoid, learn the quickest route to the few classes that still allow you to come after skipping nearly a week with no excuse, learn where the nearest 24-hour convenience store. He learns to hide his hardcore shit from you and learns to use it only when you’re in class or asleep or out with someone else (an occurrence that has only happened once since you started staying here.) He’s also learned not to ask about your brother.

Who has tried to call or text you every day since you stormed out.

_“This is Karkat, who is fucking busy, so stop calling me in the middle of class. Looking at you, Capitol One or whoever the fuck you are. Leave a message.”_

**beep.**

_“Karkat, this is beyond childish. I would have thought you were far above this abhorrent manner of behavior. Come home and discuss this like a mature adult. I’ll see you when you develop a train of thought that extends beyond you own selfish impulses.”_

**beep.**

_“This is Karkat, who is fucking busy , so stop calling me in the middle of-”_

**beep.**

_“Very well. If you wish to revert back into a selfish, reckless brat, I won’t hinder you further. Do have fun while you waste your life with him, won't you? I certainly won’t be paying any bail.”_

**beep.**

_“This is Karkat, who is-”_

**beep.**

_“Come and get your things. And then don’t you dare ever come back.”_

You spend most of your time in Gamzee’s apartment with your phone shut off and your laptop on the coffee table. He goes out often, almost every day around two in the afternoon (about a half hour after he wakes up,) and on the third day you find out that he walks downstairs, out the door, and leans against the side of the building. He watches traffic, people, and its only when two boys whose faces you can’t quite make out pass by, one pushing the other in a wheelchair while Gamzee visibly sags on the other side of the road, that he finally turns back and comes inside. You never say anything.

On the unhappy occasion that you stumble upon him in the deep midst of a trip, you let him ramble nonsense to you for an hour before you finally give up and find something else to do for the day. You don’t want to hear the shit that your friends are dying to give you in person at this point, after the lines upon lines of texts and voicemails that you’ve accumulated. Sollux already tried once in your advanced business class, followed quickly by a valiant tag-team attempted by Rose and Kanaya when they’d caught you leaving the building. 

Kanaya in and of herself was like on giant low-blow. You wanted to be a puddle on the ground.

Terezi has hardly spoken to you since you left your own apartment. You go to lunch with her on the day that Gamzee is otherwise incapacitated, and you are hardly able to stand the side-eyes she gives you or the way her nose crinkles at the smell of smoke on your skin. She clings desperately to you upon leaving, after spending two hours picking at her food and listening to you speak aimlessly rather than trying to make conversation herself. 

Today, though, you go for a walk simply through need of fresh air, downtown to the clusters of people and stores and little restaurants and the steady stream of noise and traffic. The cold air feels good on your face and you’ve had this burning need to stretch your legs for the past two days. Some pop-mess funnels through your earbuds and carries you down the street, feet crunching on the season’s first hints of frost. 

You start to regret this excursion around the time you spot Dave fucking Strider across the street and he attempts to flag you down, fails, and sprints across the busy road to meet you. 

Inwardly, you’re screaming curses and kicking yourself in the ass. Outwardly you glance over your shoulder, take one bud out of your ear, and arch a brow as he jogs up to you, panting.

“Yo,” he says, straightening the shades perched on his nose. “Long time no see, bro.”

You shuffle your feet and feel and uncomfortable sensation creep up your stomach. “Yeah,” you say, voice forced. “Hey.”

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket (is that a goddamn blazer Dave Strider? You insufferable piece of pretentious shit--) and looks you up and down, settling back on his heels before rocking forward again. “You look. Wow.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He waits a moment before answering. “You look like some demon of explosive acne and greasy hair spat itself out of hell to sit on your face.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that so fucking much. Dave strider, master of horrible raps and compliments. You deserve a medal, ‘World’s Douchiest--’”

“Woah, dude, chill. You look _exactly_ like you’ve been roomies with our clown. Not saying I’m shocked or confused, here.”

You glare at him. You fucking hate the fact that you can’t tell if he’s judging you or worried about you or just calling things as he sees them. You haven’t showered in a few days and you’re pretty sure that the constant influx of junkfood has settled a grime on your face that is constituting heavily to the aforementioned acne. You hope he’s not pitying you. You don’t think you could handle that. 

There’s a few beats of silence before he jerks his head in a command to follow him. “C’mon, bro.”

You barely hesitate before you comply. He leads you back the way you came, toward to parking garage across the road from Gamzee’s building. 

He opens the passenger’s side door and motions for you to sit. 

“Are you seriously fucking kidnapping me, or.”

He laughs. “You look like you could use a break, dude.”

The car pulls out onto the road and now you’re headed across town, arms folded over your chest and wondering how the hell this happened. Dave doesn’t say much. His car smells like cigarettes and discarded energy drinks. The silence isn’t quite comfortable between the two of you, twining around you bodies like a thousand invading elephants, but it is familiar. You settle back, watching the buildings go past, ears catching a low thrum from the radio.

You realize that he’s turning onto a small, middle-class, suburban street that is completely new to you. He smiles slightly at your confused look. 

“You didn’t hear? John’s dad helped us out. We managed to nail a little place just off campus. Kinda old, but its better than the apartment.” He pulls into the driveway of a small house, blue siding, white trim, complete with a little porch out front that’s been bedecked with pots waiting for plants. “Got enough space to make a darkroom for me now. And John’s piano fits in the dining room.”

You forgot that you kind of hate the soft look that floats over his face when he talks about Egbert.

The interior of the house feels warm, lived-in, drenched in a kind of coziness that you think only someone truly from the Egbert bloodline could manage to slap together with shitty posters and ikea furniture. You hate it. Hate the pictures on the walls and the smell of the air freshener that only barely covers the smell of Dave’s smoking habit, the neatly-arranged movies beside the television, the slight clutter that lets you know that people do, in fact, actually live in this pristine hell-hole. 

It’s the pictures that catch your eye again. You can find John in them, John and Dave, John and his dad, Dave and his bro, John and Dave with Rose and Jade, and there, nestled between all the happy-warm family memories, sits a captured you-and-Dave at roughly seventeen, balls-deep in Mountain Dew bottles and grasping Xbox controllers like they were precious children. You sit on the floor of your old room in pyjama pants, your mouth curled to snarl something, a smirk on his face.

Gamzee took that picture, you realize.

You can feel John in the images, too, as well as in the overlarge movie posters that surround the television like a fucked-up shrine to bad acting, in the vanilla-scented candles on the end tables, in the deflated whoopie cushion draped over the back of the couch. The corner of your mouth twitches. 

“You’re downright motherfucking domestic,” you snort, turning toward him. “Wait. Give me a second. Is a golden retriever or some shit gonna come around the corner? Is John pregnant? When’s the wedding?” You shake you head when he starts laughing. “This is. Wow.”

It’s exactly how you never would’ve pictured Dave living, and exactly how you would’ve pictured you and Terezi living at this point. A bitter kind of jealousy twists in your gut and you feel a guilty pang. 

“John’ll be home in a few,” Dave says, disappearing into the next room and yelling at you from what you presume to be the kitchen. “Pop a squat, bro.”

“You’re still not cool.”

“You’re still not right.”

He comes back with two cans of something that prove not to be beer, to your distain, and-- yes, those are definitely cans of apple juice. You sit on the couch gingerly, like the fragile image of domesticity will shatter underneath your soap-opera-esque weight. 

There’s a drawn-out silence in which you can feel him thinking, arching a brow at you. You know what’s coming.

“...So do I need to get an intervention going, or--”

You scowl. “Dude.”

“Because I can. I can see it now. I bet there’d be tears.”

“You--”

“Probably mine.”

The laugh you give is dry. “Yeah, thanks.” You take a sip of your drink. 

“Seriously.” Dave chews on the inside of his cheek, a habit you’ve managed to peg as a nervous reaction in him. You can feel his gaze behind his sunglasses. “What’s going on, man? I though you were doing--”

“They’re going fine.”

The corners of his mouth tighten. He runs a hand over the back of his neck, sighing, fixing you in a look that is just slightly less than blank. You shift uncomfortably.

“A lot of people are worried about you, dude. This shit can’t be going over well.” You begin to protest, to say that you can worry about yourself, but Dave waves it off. “I backed right the fuck out of that one. It was too much, y’know?” He shakes his head. “ _I_ backed out. And suddenly _you’re_ the one getting down with our clown?”

“It’s not--” you let out a frustrated growl. “I’m not doing any of that stupid heavy bullshit, okay? It’s. Just good to chill.”

Dave nods. “I’ll give you that.” He leans back against the tv display and stretches out his legs. “So. What happened?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He splays his fingers out over his chest and offers a very small smile. “Karkat Vantas, don’t you play coy with me. This rebellion is the talk of the town!” He lets the Texas accent he adopted from his brother shine through here. “I been hearin’ it left and right how you’re runnin’ away with that handsome prince of a jugga--”

“Okay, yeah, you can shut up now.”

He laugh, re-adjusting his shades.

“...Kankri decided to bring up some bad shit at a bad time. So I left.”

“Been freaking Terezi out.”

“Let’s not go there today, okay? Sorry. Just. Not fucking today.”

“Right.”

You talk about he and John. You talk about how he and Rose have plans to go to Bro’s for Thanksgiving this year, and you vocalize the fact that you hadn’t even realized that it was November yet, that you must’ve spent Halloween stoned out of your mind, and Dave pulls this sad look that you try too hard not to think about. He tells you that Kankri is a dick and that you deserve a better place to live than with him or Gamzee. Your voice crack when you agree.

**=== >**

You realized about a week before Karkat came that your money was slowly starting to fizzle up and dry. You’d gotten angry then, and you’re kind of glad that Karkat came later on so that he didn’t see the way you punched the wall and screamed. And then you’d been slapped in the face over and over again with Kurloz’s voicemail, and then you’d gotten so high that you thought maybe the whole thing might’ve been a dream.

Its probably lucky that the state refuses to acknowledge the severe mood swings that Mituna suffers after his accident as a symptom of the accident. Lithium was around the fifth in a list of medications that he’d taken to asking you for, as a form of relief, one after the other as they’d each stopped working. You think you’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t getting you in contact with your brother, who, coincidentally, was in charge of your father’s funds while your dad is in lockup. 

Kurloz looks less than pleased to find you on his front porch. But you offer him a lazy grin anyway.

“Hey, brother,” you drawl out, slow and soft. He frowns. You tilt your head t the side and shift uncomfortably, all the little warning bells in your head ringing like doomsday. He doesn’t want you here. You shouldn’t be here. His face is completely unreadable and you smile grows ever-tighter. “You gonna a let a motherfucker in, or we gotta talk out here?”

You know he won’t talk out here. 

He hesitates before he steps aside, his eyes on you mistrustful and leary all the while. He nods faintly, almost imperceptibly, before he lets you in.

It’s your father’s house, the one all the way across town in the rich white-people areas where you grew up and left as soon as you could. You walk into the expansive foyer, your shoes squeaking on the tile, and Kurloz winces at the sound as he closes the door behind you.

“Whatever it is you’re wantin’, motherfucker,” he says in a graveled tone, voice cracked from lack of use and able to speak now that he was unexposed and his anxieties were calmed, “I promise you ain’t gonna be findin’ it here.” He folds his arms across his chest and fixes you in a heavy glare. The little white scars on his lips stick out vibrantly when his face is set. “You best not be askin’.”

“Nah, that ain’t it,” you hum, backing into the lavishly-decorated living room (all your mother’s work-- your father didn’t dare touch it after she left.) Kurloz follows. “I was just wonderin’ why you up an’ cut me off.” You pull a dramatic face at him. “I mean, that’s seemin’ like a low blow to me.”

His face stays passive and he considers you for a long moment. When he speaks, its low enough to send a shudder down your spine.

“Everyone knows where that money was endin’ up.” He runs a hand through his wild curls of hair, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. 

“I just need enough for me an’ Karkat.”

Kurloz shakes his head stiffly. “You best be gettin’ back home.”

“Bro--”

He’s walking back out into the foyer, hardly glancing at you. “I’m expectin’ company.”

“Motherfucker, I only just got he--”

He rounds on you with strained eyes and tight lips, visibly distressed and tense. “Please, Gamzee.”

You stand there for a minute, wounded, before slinking out of the house and back to your car.

You kind of hope that Karkat will be there when you get back.

**=== >**

You had already been beginning to enjoy yourself when John got back from viola lessons and exclaimed excitedly about seeing you curled up on the couch, talking to Dave. He brings in a light airiness to the conversation that hadn’t realize you’d missed, and the three of you settle in to talk and somewhere along the line Dave orders a pizza and John pops in a movie that you hate and the three of you are just _happy_ , and it’s something you think you’d forgotten how to feel.

You phone buzzes insistently around nine thirty. Remembering Gamzee is like submerging yourself in ice water.

**YoU mOtHeRfUcKiNg LeAvInG mE?**

Dave notices you biting your lip and gives you a quizzical look, cokcing his head to one side. He and John share a quick, knowing glance before John speaks.

“...I can drive you home, if you want.”

Dave clears his throat. “Or you could stay here,” he says, something rougher than usual in his voice. “For as long as you need to.” John nods in agreement with him, looking at you hopefully.

You stare at them for a moment, at their brushing shoulders, the smile on John’s face, the clean and warm house and the way they look at you makes you feel like you could be _safe_ here. You open and close your mouth several times before you attempt to speak.

Your phone buzzes again.

**SaW kUrLoZ tOdAy.**

Their faces when you look back up at them are still alight and welcoming. Your gut wrenches. It hits you, for a moment, how nice it would be to just stay, have pizza and watch movies and talk and maybe, possibly, forget all about _him_ again and set things back on course.

“Can’t,” you say softly, glancing down at the text again. “I should probably get back.”

“Karkat--” Dave starts, face puckering just slightly into worry. John rests a hand over his and smiles at you.

“I’ll take you back over there.”

The look Dave gives you before you leave nearly splits you in half, especially when you’re by the door and he stands, peering at you over the rim of his shades so that you can see the scarlet of his eyes. He grasps one of your shoulders tightly and give you a gentle shake.

“Be careful with him, dude.”

You feel kind of like you want to cry.

 

John’s nonstop babble on the drive home is comforting. You let yourself relax against the seat as he tells you about his film class with Dave, how he misses you in intermediate orchestra. You think you’d almost forgotten about school and classes and you’d stopped absorbing knowledge around the time you let Gamzee back into your life. The smiles you give John are kind of blank. He doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I’ll walk you to the door,” he offers, pulling up the curb beside Gamzee’s building. He doesn’t give you a chance to deny it before he slips out of the driver’s seat.

You can see your breath on the chilled November air. As you near the entrance, John stops, his face turning softer, a little more serious, and your nerves spike in your gut.

“...Dave saw what Gamzee was like, y’know,” he says, voice a little heavier than usual. “That’s why he’s worried.”

“I know what I’m doing,” you grumble, shoving your hands into your pockets.

John frowns. “I dunno about that.”

“Fuck off.”

He laughs softly, reaching forward to grip you in a tight, breathless hug that shocks you for a minute. You hadn’t realized he’d gotten around a hair taller than you. The embrace is familiar and warm and for a second you can’t find it in you to protest.

“We’ve always got a spot on the couch for you, Karkat. Whenever you want it.”

You let out a soft growl and push him away, flush trying very hard to spread over your cold cheeks. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll uh. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye!” he chirps, waving as he backs away and nearly trips on the curb. You stifle a laugh.

You feel something break when he drives away. You have to force your feet to begin shuffling, and using the key Gamzee gave you is done with shaking hands. 

He’s sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter when you walk in. 

“Hey, brother.”

“What the shit are you doing.”

The look he gives you is grave, his face pulled up into a mournful frown. “Prayin’.”

You snort. “Right, yeah. You saw Kurloz?”

He winces at the name as if it hit him. Wild tangles of hair fall over his face when he bows his head to his knees, a low, whining sound falling from him without warning. You raise your eyebrows as he curls in on himself. You wonder exactly how far gone he is.

“We’re fucked,” he moans, shoulders giving a violent shudder. “I didn’t do anythin’ right and now we got nothin’. All my fault.” He says this with a stuttered gasp. “M’so fuckin’ sorry, Karkat, I done up and broke us.” He oozes off the counter, onto the floor.

This is a nightly event.

“Would you stop,” you snap, kneeling down beside him. “you’re not helping anything like this.”

“Worthless,” he moans.

“No shit.”

You cross your legs and sit just in front of him, sighing as you begin to work your fingers into the tangles knots of his hair. He must’ve cleaned it to see Kurloz-- the locks are soft and easy to pick through. He hiccups. You take his shoulders and pull him to you gently, letting him clamp his arms around you like a vice and whimper softly against your scalp. You can feel the shudders pass through his body and his breath on your neck and you _hate_ it but you think you might need some kind of closeness, too. 

You realize how miserable you actually are and cling to him in turn.

“We’re gonna lose the apartment,” he murmurs in your ear. “I don’t got much left an’ I can’t-- I c-can’t--”

“Are you seriously saying that you can’t cut back on this bullshit long enough to set yourself straight?”

Theres a soft wail pressed against your neck and you decide to drop it until he’s sober.

“Dave kidnapped me and took me to this weird sanity wonderland today,” you grumble, still petting through his hair. You realize that your voice is catching just slightly.”He offered to let me stay with him.”

Gamzee almost convulses and pulls back to look at you, showing bloodshot and dilated eyes. Violet-black hair nearly obscures them. “Davebro?” he whispers, hardly louder than a whisper. 

“Yeah.”

He pulls you closer until you’re nearly in his bony lap, his breath ragged. You let him, and bury your face in the sharp line of his collar bone.

Maybe he feels the chill that goes down your spine, and maybe he’s more lucid than you’d previously thought. He moves a flat palm along the back of your neck.

“You alright, motherfucker?”

Your fingers knot in his hoodie and his hair as you shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut. A shallow, jittery, empty feeling settles in your stomach and you want Dave, you want John, want warmth and security and something more than the overheated sack of bones that you hold close, but somehow, still, still, you need him more than anything you can conjure up in the fragments of your mind that are still trying. You let slip a single broken sob.

Gamzee’s revelation is a tiny intake of breath in your ear. “You wanna go with them.” It’s not a question.

This makes you cling tighter.

“We’re fucked,” you say, pulling the sleeve of your sweater down over your hand and wiping your nose with it. 

You need some kind of distraction when anxiety settles over you in a thick blanket. Too much. Too much, too many thoughts, all filtering into your body and making you shake alongside Gamzee. Leaving dave’s house felt like some kind of irreparable tie being torn in two. The man, the boy, quivering in your arms is everything in your new world. You want Terezi.

“Can I help?” he murmurs. 

You know what he means. You nod anyway.  
 **=== >**


	8. come on love, draw your swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat has a knack for making everything worse than it already is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> terezi is talked about way too much for someone who is barely payed attention to by the protagonist. but guess who wnt stop? the author. guess who is in love with terezi? the author.

The morning is more painful than anything you could’ve imagined. There’s a sore spot in the soft skin just above the crook of your elbow, like a fresh bruise, and your head has a distorted foggy feeling that throbs now and then with searing pain. You’re still on the kitchen floor, specks of dirt on the tile leaving sharp little indents in your cheek. You don’t even try to sit up. Gamzee is snoring too loud.

Gamzee. 

Racing across town to rescue Gamzee from near-death. Throwing Gamzee into the shower. Gamzee’s face when he sleeps. Gamzee’s warm arm over your shoulders at Vriska’s party. His mouth on yours that night. His bones uncomfortable against your body. His fingers, long and tanned and holding a lighter to sterilize the glittering needle-end of syringe. His face erupting into violets and coppers and greens when he let fire engulf you and swallow you whole. You gasp in a breath.

“Fuck,” you mutter in a cracked voice. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

You feel sleep pull you under again as you look out the window at the dull gray sky.

When you wake again, his arm is slung over you and he’s too warm, the stale stench of his body odor heavy in the air. You don’t want to move. There’s still pain. He’s stopped snoring.

“You even realize how pretty your eyes are? All wide and dark and sparklin’ and shit, lookin’ at nothin’ and… and…” the thought disappears into the air. You don’t respond. 

You remember the fireworks in your bloodstream and the giddy kind of calm that had enveloped the whole world. You remember the beauty, then the awful, dragging sadness as the night dwindled. You remember sobbing some more. Your entire left arm hurts, now. 

Breakfast is a bottle of grape Faygo split between the two of you. Gamzee talks. You don’t. The world seems grayer, somehow, and when you look out the window to see snow falling lazily to the ground, piling in tiny banks in the windowsill, part of you wants to cry again. Slowly, Gamzee accepts your silence and the two of you just sit for a while. 

You sleep again after less than an hour and when you wake up to a chilled evening, you’re finally, finally entirely lucid but your body is shrieking its complaints at you. There’s a dragging feeling in your stomach and a splitting, piercing headache that puts the one before to a cringing shame. You know that your stomach is empty, but the idea of food sends a wave of nausea so strong that you heeve dryly. Gamzee is nowhere to be found. 

You crack the window open, letting frigid air into the apartment. There’s a hollow feeling in you, one that you don’t manage to bite back. You ignore the twin needles laying out on the kitchen counter.

There’s a half-empty case of beer in the fridge and you pop the top on one, taking a deep swig and wincing. You feel about a thousand miles from the rest of the world and you’re very, very careful not to think too hard on the night before.

The beer leaves a bad aftertaste in your mouth that you chase back with the ashen taste of your depleted pack of Marlboros. You want to bury yourself in your makeshift bed on the couch, but your brain refuses to fall back into sleep after remaining dormant all day. The seems less colorful, now, after the intense burst of it that last night had brought, and for a fleeting second you want more than anything for Gamzee to be home. 

You hate him. 

You hate this situation that he’s brought you into, offered to you, and you hate yourself for latching on like a desperate stray. You hate the fact that it’s barely been a month since he lured you back into his world and you’re already being sucked down into this disgusting pit and you’re not doing a damn thing to draw yourself out. You hate the fact that you haven’t seen Terezi in a week or Sollux or Kanaya, the friends that you still care about, in well over a month. You hate that you haven’t gone to a class in several days, even though finals are fast approaching and you’ve stopped thinking about your degree, about your future, and have begun thinking about how you’re supposed to put together the torn and soggy puzzle pieces of your life back together. 

You’re about to throw up when you finally call him.

“Come home.”

He sounds less out of it than he usually does, but it goes hand-in-hand with the bite of anxiety voice. “M’at the bank, Karbro. Just made a deal so we can get food later.” He pauses. “What’s goin’ on?”

You cough. “I need to kick your ass.”

There’s a laugh on the other line that makes your blood boil, but he tells you that he’s on his way. 

You don’t sleep that night. You spend it with your head in his lap, slowly struggling to breathe right while he runs deft fingers across the back of your neck. 

“Did you get money?”

“Some.”

You turn your face up to look at him and shiver into his touch. His eyes are hooded, his mouth set into a soft frown. The clock under the television says 11:26.

“Enough for food?” Your stomach punctuates this with a fierce grumble.

His frown stretches into a fond smile and twenty minutes later you are two of five customers in a brightly-lit Denny’s. 

You play idly with the ring of condensation that your coke has left on the table top, making designs on the faux-wood with the water. He’s sitting across from you, worrying at the unlit cigarette in his lips, eyes taking on a sleepy glaze. You watch the snow fall out the window over his shoulder, your hands shaking slightly. You order a plate of fries. Nothing more. 

“You should eat something,” you say to him as the waitress saunters away, glancing back over her shoulder at the two of you. 

He makes a noncommittal noise and takes a sip of black coffee. 

Another tired patron across the aisle is glancing at Gamzee quickly, shifting uncomfortably in their seat. You don’t really care to find out if they know each other, or if the person can simply recognize the dead look in Gamzee’s eyes. Druggy pigeonhole. 

You realize that you fit the bill for that label now and a particularly violent shudder passes down your spine. 

“It feels like years,” you begin, softly, voice crackling. “Like… years since anything has been normal.” Your eyes are locked on the way his hands twirl the cigarette between his fingers. 

He smiles softly. “Maybe this _is_ normal. Maybe that world’s just miracles you been motherfuckin’ shuttin’ out. Maybe you’re comin’ home.”

“God, I fucking hate you.” His foot brushes yours under the table.

You sit in silence, playing with your straw wrapper, Gamzee’s eyes skimming down the dessert menu. He hums softly, some growly tone that makes your skin crawl.

“...What happens now?” 

It’s said with a weak voice and your eyes are locked with Gamzee’s, your hands shaking. You realize that this has been the hollow feeling in your stomach, this has been dragging you back into sleep for the past twenty four hours. Gamzee’s lips turn down at the corners, jaw straining just slightly, a sigh escaping his lips. 

“I think that’s up to you, motherfucker.”

You hide your face in your palms and take slow, deep breaths, your heart hammering in the pit of your throat. 

“That’s the fucking _problem_ ,” you grate, curling into a snarl. “I don’t fucking _know_ what to do.” You sigh heavily. “This is all going to shit.”

An easy grin spreads across his face and he reaches across the table to rest the tips of his long fingers against your forearm. “Eeeeeeaasy, brother. Ain’t nothin’ ever get done by worryin’. You’re okay.” He takes on a slightly pensive air. “I mean, that’s life, innit? Shit goes in an’ out forever like some big bitchtits miracle, good an’ bad an’ whatnot just filter on through some big life-machine some motherfuck up an’ forgot to control, till nothin’ else matters no more.”

You stare blankly at him through a gap in your fingers. “...I think that is legitimately the stupidest shit I have ever heard you say. But I understood every fuckin word. It’s official. It’s time to kill myself.”

“Aw, c’mon, motherfu--”

“I’m dead fucking serious, you shit.”

A plate loaded down with french fries is set in front of you. You’re both silent for a long moment, Gamzee’s eyes following the movement of the waitress’s hips, before he reaches out and steals a fry, giving you a sheepish grin. You sigh.

“You need to relax, brother,” the stress on the word relax is paired with two fingers against his lips and a false sucking motion. 

Your lip curls. “Can you fucking not right now? Two minutes? Fuckin thank you.”

Gamzee lights a cigarette. You expect some kind of complaint from the restaurant, patrons or workers, but he takes a deep pull without complication. You steal one from the pack on the table.

“I’m not like you,” you say softly. 

He looks up at you curiously, puffing smoke into your face. 

“I mean--” you say, tapping ashes onto the edge of your plate. “Even after that. I’m never gonna be that person again, got it? So if you were trying to change me back or some shit, like, re-live the--”

“Who said I was tyin’a do that?” he hums.

You blink at him, frowning. He shrugs.

“Maybe I just thought we was friends again. Not like before, yeah, but like somethin’ new. Maybe,” he says pointedly, eyes locking with yours while he taps out his ashes. “I just missed you.”

You swallow half a fry that had been sitting between your back teeth and stare at the table again. His voice is serious. You’re too awake. You’re all-too aware of your veins burning, the tightness in your throat, the nausea dragging at your whole body, the way your fingers tremble as you reach for more food.

He’s quiet for a while, watching you through half-lidded eyes as you shift your weight uncomfortably. You don’t like his gaze, feel like he’s mapping out the pattern of your aching muscles and plotting a remedy for you that involves more tile imprints on your skin. The sore spot above the crook in your arm throbs.

“Hey,” he says, quiet. He reaches out across the table again to put a ridiculously large hand over your comparatively small, fat-fingered one, tanned fingers brushing against the vibrantly blue veins just below your flesh. “Maybe I just think you’re a motherfuckin’ miracle.”

And for just a moment, you’re in the humid darkness of his bedroom, your face pressed into his collarbone, the tone of his voice whispering your beauty you miracles, and his lips brush against your cheek before your mouth finds his with a half-desperate whine. 

You wince and he pulls his hand back.

“It’s all gonna be okay,” he says.

You run a hand through your hair. “I need to see Terezi tomorrow.”

The look that crosses his face is half-hidden disgust. You don’t comment on it, even when he leans back in his seat and folds his arms, eyes fixing on a point above your left shoulder.

You hardly touch the food on the table. He picks at it gradually, until only ashes remain and the waitress comes back around and he waves her off, much less attentive to her than before.

“If you ain’t like me,” he murmurs over the rim of his coffee mug. “Why’d you up an’ pick me to stay with?”

“Because you’re the only person who’d take me in?”

He pulls a sad look. “You really believe that?”

You don’t say anything and he shakes his head slowly. “Motherfucker, if you think we ain’t alike, you best be takin’ a good look at yourself sometime.”

Over his shoulder, you catch sight of your face reflected in the dark window, printed against the falling snow.

**=== >**

He looks broken, now, even when he smiles that wide, peaceful smile and smoke filters out from between his teeth. You think you could piece together new universes from the hair he pulls from his own scalp as he paces, mouth going too fast for you to keep up with, feet doing a pent-up dance against the floorboards. It takes less than a day for him to beg for another miracle, for him to collapse against you and sob into your chest for forty straight minutes until you offer him relief and he injects it greedily into his system.

You know he’ll never forgive you for this. You didn’t think you were capable of hating yourself this much or wanting so badly to keep him safe. You don’t want him to be anything like you, but seeing him this way, this hollow creature makes you feel _better_ , in some sadistic way that guts you until you want to crumple. The first time he demands you dance through the living room with him in the dead, two-a.m. silence, you stumble down the hall to vomit, only to heave from the lack of food in your stomach.

He’s fluid like this. This hard-edged loss of baby fat that curls in on y, on himself, against your chest like a drugged kitten. He stares at dust motes with wide pupils, face blank except when you speak. The he breaks out into the softest of smiles.

You are trash, vermin, everything in the world that is unholy and wrong and all you want to do is hold him close and believe that he doesn’t despise you in that moment, doesn’t despise anything in that moment. You only want to know his peace and the exact shade of the flush on his skin. 

The world turns pastel when Karkat is with you like this. The feel of his breath soaking through your shirt is pale gray, the smell of his skin the softest pink you can imagine. His voice is baby blue and you want to float in it like an ocean.

Terezi’s name is too bright and hot on your tongue, an unpleasant orange-red that still flutters off his lips like a blessing. Some nights you wish you could give him everything inside of her, wrap up the stars he says reside in her fingertips and let him hold them forever, for him, for him. Most days you want to rip her away from him, tear her off like a filthy bandage.

You hate her almost as much as you hate yourself.

You find him sprawled across your bed one morning, gray winter light spilling over his bare shoulders. He looks like and angel tangled up in your sheets. You pull the comforter up over his naked torso with a small, gentle smile before you see the phone a few inches from his left hand, screen lit with a “H3LLO? 4R3 YOU UP?”

A grimace fans over your face and you fight, very hard, not to snoop.

You do it anyway.

**1 DONT THINK H3’S GOOD FOR YOU. YOU C4M3 4 R34LLY LONG W4Y 4ND 1 F33L L1K3 H3’S GONN4 FUCK 1T 4LL UP.**

Karkat hadn’t responded for another ten minutes, and you can imagine him growling as he erases response after response before he gives up and sends one. This gives you a dull kind of hope.

**HE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO GAVE ENOUGH OF A SHIT TO TAKE ME IN.**

**D1D YOU 3V3N BOTH3R 4SK1NG 4NYON3 3LS3?**

**WHO THE FUCK IS THERE?**

You look down at him with a tight throat, at the curl of his body, thinner than you ever remember him being, breath barely enough to disturb the strands of dark hair falling over his face. You chance a quick, delicate brush of fingertips across his forehead, tensing when he stirs, relaxing when he when he only nuzzles into your hand and lets out a sigh deep in his sleep. You perch on the edge of the mattress as you continue to read. 

**OH, 1 DONT KNOW, WH4T 4BOUT YOUR 4CTU4L FR13NDS? WH4T 4BOUT M3?**

Your lip curls, just slightly.

**YEAH, I’M SURE YOUR SISTER WOULD JUST LOVE ME IN HER HOUSE.**

**OK4Y. WH4T 4BOUT SOLLUX OR 3R1D4N OR D4VE?**

**LIVE WITH ERIDAN AND GET FOUND BY HIS SHITLICKING OLDER BROTHER OR LIVE WITH SOLLUX AND HERE HIS SHITTY OPINION ON MY SITUATION FOR MONTHS, WHAT A GREAT FUCKING CHOICE.**

There was another text from Karkat, directly after this, as if he’d hesitated to send it originally. But it spits anger and you don’t like it.

**AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, DAVE DOESN’T MAGICALLY FIX EVERYTHING LIKE SOME DOUCHEY FUCKIN SUPERHERO, DESPITE POPULAR OPINION.**

**WOW FUCK YOU. 4T L34ST D4VES’ B33N 4ROUND FOR M3, NOT DROPP3D OFF TH3 F4C3 OF TH3 34RTH W1TH 4 PSYCHOP4TH1C DRUG 4DD1CT.**

**FUCK, I SHOULDN’T HAVE SAID THAT.**

**W4T3V3R. 1T DO3SN’T M4TT3R.**

A long gap in the conversation.

**H4V3 YOU DON3 4NYTH1NG B3YOND SMOK1NG W1H H1M?**

And all that’s left now is the most recent text. You look between the phone and Karkat, chest pained, and hover your finger over the ‘delete’ button on the second to last message. Karkat turns in his sleep, hand creeping across the sheets until it reaches you knee. You blink, spine going rigid as he stills for a moment, before moving himself closer to you. The top of his head touches the side of your thigh and his finger knot in your pyjama pants. 

“Motherfuck--” you mutter, placing a hand uncertainly on his shoulder. He eases at your touch. 

A small, half-smile folds over your face at the feel of his breath. You set his phone to the side, slowly reclining back on the bed and dragging his limp frame with you so that he rests beside you, his face turned into your chest, your chin resting on the crown of his head, your arm tossed over his torso.

He gives you bruises on your ribs when he wakes up like this, and you laugh, and laugh, and laugh…

**=== >**


End file.
